The wait is over for ‘Peaky Blinders’ fans wondering about the show’s future
The news we all wanted to hear
It takes real popularity for fans of a show to begin speculating about forthcoming seasons before the latest one has even aired, but Peaky Blinders has that magic touch.
The fourth series of the BBC show was a huge hit, drawing a record 4.4m viewers for its series finale, and details of the plot for season five have got a bunch of people excited.
It’s not enough to just wait for the next episodes to land, though – viewers have looked further to the future with speculation about a movie gathering pace in the light of comments from star Cillian Murphy.
The only way to end speculation, of course, is to confirm or deny the theories on everyone’s lips, so creator Steven Knight has moved to draw a line under all the chatter once and for all.
“We are definitely doing [series] six and we will probably do seven,” Knight told the Birmingham Press Club, as reported by The Independent.
He confirmed Murphy and “the rest of the principal cast” are also on board, suggesting there will be no major personnel changes in the immediate future.
Knight wrote each of the episodes in the first four seasons of the show, which centres around a criminal gang in inter-war Birmingham, with the fifth due to air at an as-yet-unspecified time in 2019.
And there have also been discussions over a Peaky Blinders ballet, with the show’s creator speaking to the acclaimed Ballet Rambert – he has admitted he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about that part, but now the cat is out of the bag.
Read more: Here’s the supercut of all Tom Hardy’s ‘Peaky Blinders’ swearing you never knew you needed
Each season of Peaky Blinders so far has had a different director at the helm for each of its six episodes, bringing a sort of micro-consistency, and there’s a new man on board for season five.
According to Deadline, that man will be Anthony Byrne, the Irish director whose other work includes several episodes of Ripper Street and the upcoming Natalie Dormer film In Darkness.
If Byrne is able to make the fifth season stand out, there’s no reason to suspect Knight won’t stick with the one writer/one director combo in a sixth and potentially seventh six-episode run.
Or, perhaps a sixth season and a movie – something the creator hinted at in an interview with the Birmingham Mailin 2017.
“There’s a ton of life left in Peaky,” Knight told the paper.
“I don’t want to pull the plug while it’s still vibrant.”
(Images: Robert Viglasky/BBC)
