BBC Two period crime drama Peaky Blinders is back for a highly-anticipated second season. John Byrne talks to Cillian Murphy, who plays lead character and burgeoning crime boss, Thomas Shelby.
After a spectacular first season that was both a critical and ratings success, Steven Knight's period drama Peaky Blinders returns for a second run this Thursday, October 2. And this time around everything's up a notch or twelve as Birmingham crime boss Thomas Shelby (superbly played by Cillian Murphy) heads for lucrative-but-perilous opportunities while seeking to expand his empire beyond the English midlands.
As the 1920s begin to roar, business is booming for the Peaky Blinders gang and Shelby starts to bring his legal and illegal operations into previously unchartered territory. He has his sights set firmly on wider horizons, and the race tracks of the south of England are calling out for new management.
Shelby’s meteoric rise brings him into contact with both the upper echelons of society and astonishing new adversaries from London’s criminal enterprises. All will test him to the core, though in very different ways.
Meanwhile, Shelby’s home turf of Birmingham is facing some new challenges as members of his family react to the upturn in their fortunes, and an enemy from his past returns to the city with plans for a revenge of biblical proportions.
Featuring a spectacular cast that includes Helen McCrory (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), Noah Taylor (Game of Thrones) and Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises), Peaky Blinders is set to deliver an explosive second season with an enthralling tale of ambition, corruption, violence, desire - and family.
Cillian Murphy deservedly earned much praise for his portrayal of Thomas Shelby, and we caught up with the 38-year-old Corkman just before the second season opener was premiered a couple of weeks ago in Birmingham.
John Byrne: The first season of Peaky Blinders was a great success - were you surprised, because it was quite unlike anything the BBC had done before?
Cillian Murphy: "Yeah, and I think that's probably what contributed to the success, really. I was kind of unexpected. It dealt with themes and topics I don't think had been dealt with much, certainly in British drama, and I think that was what people were attracted to."
It was quite refreshing to see a BBC period drama that wasn't about posh people!
"That's what it was - it was about working-class people. And I think that was the first time you'd seen that in Britain. The Americans are very good at mythologising their working-classes, making them look cool and showing them as real people with ambition, whereas in Britain, it's not so much. I think it was refreshing for everybody."
Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy in Peak Blinders
What can viewers expect from season two?
"I always think that a second season is like when a show takes flight, if the writing is good and the cast is good. I think it's certainly the case here where Tommy's vision for his empire expands and goes south to London, and he encounters a bigger force than he could ever have imagined, really. And also, within the family relations are very strained and he's trying to keep the whole thing together and Polly's story - who's played by Helen McCrory - becomes very important in this season as well.
"She was certainly the matriarch of last season. She was a very strong, tough lady. You see that as well, but also we'll see her as she becomes a woman and the more feminine side of her, and how Tommy needs to manage that and look after her, and the tension that that brings."
How did it feel to get back into Tommy's skin?
"He's a great man! He's a fairly exhausting character to play! He's so relentlessly ambitious and I don't think he actually sleeps at all. And because he's so sure of himself, certainly to the people he meets and encounters, so it requires a lot of concentration. And he's also fearless - which I'm not! He's very, very physically capable. It's a very big journey to go to from me to him. But it's a character I really enjoy."
Fear is the key? Overcome that and everything else is a doddle, really . . .
"It's funny you should bring that up. What became clear to me is that, not only is he not afraid of death, and that's what makes him such a difficult and challenging character, he's also seen and encountered terrible things in the First World War. But the fact that he's not afraid to die makes him really dangerous."
The terrible things that occurred in WWI - these are experiences that you'd never forget and they shaped men such as Shelby, didn't they?
"They are experiences that you and I could never even dream of. They just change men. I think Tommy lost any respect he may have had for authority, and also he's been living with these visions and these memories; you see him self-medicating. This season I think it'll be more about just diving into work and his plans for his family."
Sam Neill as Chief Inspector Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders
It's 100 years since the events of Peaky Blinders and the world has completely changed . . .
"It's relevant now, given that it is 100 years, and people will hopefully begin to see the shadow that this war cast on these men. And also there's this problem that we have nowadays of men returning from wars all over the world and how they're dealing with it."
Now that creator/writer Steven Knight has a second season he can really get his teeth into this story and the characters involved . . .
"I do think that writing's really reached a new level of excellence this season. He's really gone and pushed the characters to new extremes and I think it'll be exciting for the fans this season."
And then Tom Hardy's coming in as a gang leader . . .
"Tom's a great actor and it's nice to be working with him again."
Do you stay in character or can you switch on and off with ease - especially with a character such as Tommy?
"When you play like that for six months, by osmosis you can't help it get under your skin. But I don't make a conscious effort to walk around doing the accent. But it does take a while to shake him off".
Are there resonances?
"Well this year is quite funny, as I did the show for six months and then I had a day off and then I went into rehearsals for Ballyturk so I had to shake him off. I had no choice. But, normally you should be given a couple of months to go on holiday, and get to know your family again."
Peaky Blinders, Thursdays, BBC Two
