Birmingham gangster drama Peaky Blinders has been given a confirmed transmission date.
Created by Steven Knight, who wrote 2002’s Oscar-nominated crime thriller Dirty Pretty Things, new six-part drama Peaky Blinders is based on the feared gang who brought terror to Birmingham’s streets almost 100 years ago.
The series - described by Knight as a mix of family legend and historical fact - picks up their story in 1919 and shows "a Britain that is a tumultuous mix of despair and hedonism, a nation cleaned out by the extravagances of the Great War."
The gang’s name comes from the razor blades they sewed into the peaks of their caps, which they used to injure and often blind their victims.
It’s now been officially announced that Peaky Blinders will begin airing on BBC2 on September 12 at 9pm.
In his first major TV role, Cillian Murphy plays Thomas Shelby, leader of the Peaky Blinders, who make money from illegal betting, protection and the black market.
When a crate of guns goes missing from an arms factory, their battle-hardened leader recognises an opportunity to move up in the world.
As rival gangs, Communist revolutionaries and IRA Fenians descend on Small Heath in pursuit of the weapons, Winston Churchill despatches a ruthless police chief from Belfast (Sam Neill) to impose order on an increasingly lawless city and recover the guns.
Helen McCrory, Paul Anderson, Iddo Goldberg, Charlie Creed-Miles, Annabelle Wallis, Joe Cole, Sophie Rundle and poet Benjamin Zephaniah complete the stellar cast.
Murphy said he visited Birmingham to make his accent as authentic as possible .
Helen McCrory explained that the Brummie accent back then was different to the one heard today.
She said: "We’ve never seen Birmingham in the 20s and we’ve certainly never heard accents like this.
"Our accents are 20s Birmingham, you see, and I’d just like to say that now. If anyone’s listening to my accent and thinking it’s a crap Birmingham accent, it’s not, it’s spot on. And I challenge any octogenarian Brummie to contradict me in that."
Creator Steven Knight said: "The story I want to tell is based on family legend and historical fact. It is a fiction woven into a factual landscape which is breathtakingly dramatic and cinematic, but which for very English reasons has been consigned to historical text books."
