Well, at least someone managed to get their hair cut during lockdown. Yes, those close-shorn, trendsetting Brummie gangsters, the Shelbys, are back. The BBC has officially hit ‘go’ on a sixth season of Peaky Blinders, a curtain call for its hugely popular clan of criminals until now delayed by filming restrictions caused by the pandemic.
The Shelbys are back in business. Series 6 of #PeakyBlinders has begun filming. Find out more: https://t.co/LLPzSrbhHt
— Peaky Blinders (@ThePeakyBlinder) January 18, 2021
Photo taken by director Anthony Byrne during filming of series 5. pic.twitter.com/1gOToza7fM
The gangster opus, which began back in 2013 and has since picked up a huge global fanbase, stars Cillian Murphy as gang leader Tommy Shelby and Helen McCrory as the family’s treasurer and matriarch, Aunt Polly. It all kicked off in the aftermath of World War I, with the family emerging from working class Birmingham to stake a claim to the city’s underground and black market, and will wrap up in the dark days of early World War II. Season six will see Sam Claflin co-starring as British fascist figurehead Oswald Mosley, along with Stephen Graham.
‘After the enforced production delay due to the Covid pandemic, we find the family in extreme jeopardy and the stakes have never been higher,’ says the show’s creator and writer Steven Knight.
While Knight rules out the once-rumoured seventh season, he says that Peaky Blinders will live on. ‘While the TV series will be coming to an end, the story will continue in another form,’ says Knight. Could a movie – possibly co-produced and funded by Netflix – be in the offing?
‘Steve’s scripts are incredible and mark the end of an epic story that has entranced audiences since it first started in 2013,’ says executive producer Caryn Mandabach, ‘but the world of Peaky Blinders will most definitely live on.’
Long-time Peaky Blinders director Anthony Byrne is behind the camera again for the sixth season. Expect to see it on the BBC in the UK and globally via Netflix towards the end of this year or early next.
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