The creator of the hit-show Peaky Blinders has confirmed that the Shelby crime family will return for at least two more series of misadventures.
Creator Stephen Knight, who’s currently writing the fifth series of the BBC gangster series, has also promised that Cillian Murphy’s character Tommy Shelby will be back.
The Independent reports he told the Birmingham Press Club:
We are definitely doing [series] six and we will probably do seven. We’ve talked to [lead actor] Cillian Murphy and he’s all for it, and the rest of the principal cast are in for it.
Steven Knight had previously hinted series five may be the shows last. He explained to Digital Spy that each time ‘we do six episodes’ and that if needed more to tell a story he’d ask for more.
He said:
Each time, we do six episodes [per series]… and can you sum up the story in six episodes? Or do you need another six? That’s the question.
If it doesn’t need a season six, I don’t think there’ll be one. But it may need one, because [six episodes is] such a short period of time.
What Tommy and his family will be up to in the sixth and seventh series we don’t know but we do have a few details about the upcoming fifth series.
The fourth series ended with Tommy more powerful than ever as he became the Labour MP for Birmingham and he dispatched his rivals Alfie Solomons and Luca Changretta.
Deadline reported that Anthony Byrne, who directed ITV’s Butterfly starring Anna Friel, as well as co-writing In Darkness with Game Of Thrones’ actor, Natalie Dormer, will direct all six episodes.
Meanwhile, Paul Anderson who plays Arthur Shelby has already warned fans not to presume the family are going to be going legitimate any time soon.
He told Metro:
Arthur’s not gonna be a politician. He’s got political ties now, let’s put it that way. But you won’t see him at no rallies or in Parliament.
What it gives Arthur and his family is more power. Tommy is in a position of power, and he can only get stronger in that position.
So we’ll all have more cover, we’ll have more opportunity, and more protection. And by protection I mean by society and the police and so on. We’ll be able to get away with things under the guise of, ‘we’re politicians, we’re respectable’. But we’ll be able to manipulate things more. Arthur will be even more Arthur. So it will be a lot of fun.
Paul added that he always worries that his character’s criminal activities will end with Arthur being killed off.
He explained:
There’s certainly justification for somebody to take revenge on Arthur, so I’m always thinking maybe they’ll kill me this season.
But you do get told before you start shooting. I do remember reading the scene where Arthur is strangled and you think he’s dead. ‘When I read that no one told me whether I was dead or not. I read it and I didn’t reappear for another 20 pages so I was like, ‘they’ve killed Arthur – I wish someone would have told me!’.
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More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.