By Peaky Blinders season six is coming. So they say, anyway. Sure, it's been written, and we've seen a blurred-up Insta post of the front page of the first episode's script. It's looks for all the world that it's on.
But we're sorry to tell you that it's all a lie. You thought we'd be getting more Peaky Blinders in the next few months, didn't you? You poor sap. We're looking at another year – probably more – until we see the Shelby gang walk very slowly along a Birmingham back street again. We've not even got to the bit where sneaky photos from the set come out yet. We're right at the very start of the cycle.
There are ways of scratching your Peaky Blinders itch, though. These TV shows and films should cover pretty much all of the reasons you've fallen for it, and keep you sated until it comes back properly.
Boardwalk Empire
Obvious? Sure. Essential? Undoubtedly. So much of Boardwalk Empire echoes within Peaky Blinders: the Twenties setting, the gangland tensions, the shots of people walking around a bit, the political grabbling, the outbursts of violence. It's got an incredible cast too, with Steve Buscemi, Kelly Macdonald, Stephen Graham, Kenneth Michael Williams and Michael Shannon rubbing shoulders. If it seems heavily indebted to Martin Scorsese, that's because Martin Scorsese was heavily involved, even directing the pilot episode.
The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006)
Obviously, you'll be wanting a bit of Cillian Murphy to put you on. For some of Tommy Shelby's flinty exterior and internal passion, try Ken Loach's bleak but beautiful film set during the Irish Nationalist uprisings of the early Twenties. Murphy is Damien O'Donovan, a young man from County Cork who decides to give up on learning medicine to join his brother's Irish Republican Army group. The struggle to drive out British forces turns friends and family against each other, and the internal wrangling of the republican fighters touches on the some of the same questions that Peaky Blinders does: once you've cleared away your opposition, what do you build to replace it?
The Delinquent Season (2018)
The other side of Tommy Shelby is that of the soft, vulnerable, foolish, part-time romantic, and Murphy exercises that much more in this domestic drama. He and his wife Danielle (Eva Birthistle) are friends with another couple, Chris (Andrew Scott) and Yvonne (Catherine Walker), and become embroiled in their troubled relationship. Murphy's performance as a man apparently unable to prevent himself from ruining his own life is contained but powerful.
World On Fire
The gathering storm of the Second World War has overtaken the tenor of the last couple of series of Peaky Blinders, what with Oswald Mosley gaining supporters and the Shelby gang broadly expected to put in an appearance on the antifascists' side at the Battle of Cable Street in season six. Last year's excellent World On Fire managed to tie together the lives of ordinary people in Britain, America, Poland, France and Germany in 1939 and 1940, and featured Sean Bean as a First World War veteran suffering from PTSD. Remind you of anyone? There's a second season on the way. Nice suits too.
Mad Men
The influence Peaky Blinders has had on men's style has been bewilderingly huge. Though we might be past the point when it seemed like every fifth man owned a tweed waistcoat and flat cap combo, it's still one of the few TV shows with fans who've adopted its distinctive aesthetic. A decade ago, Mad Men's tailoring, tailoring, tailoring ethos permeated the culture in a way that few shows ever manage. Look at that. Suits you could set your watch to.
Our Friends In The North
One of the great joys of Peaky Blinders is mentally ranking exactly how convincing everyone's Black Country accent is, and in this all-star BBC drama from 1996 there's a multitude of regional twangs to choose from. The Geordie accents here slide from entirely natural (Gina McKee, but seeing as she's from County Durham anyway she's cheating) to perfectly passable if a little chewy (Christopher Eccleston) to borderline incomprehensible (Daniel Craig) and, finally, Welsh (Mark Strong). The story of four friends weaving in and out of each other's lives over the course of 30 years is more than gripping enough to sweep you past the accents though. Thatcherism, socialism, the collapse of the post-war settlement and the contortions Britain went through: much like Peaky Blinders, it's social history told through the normal people bent by political headwinds.
The Slow Mo Guys
Nobody shoots people walking vvvvvveeeeerrrryyyyyy ssssllllloooowwwwwllllyyyyyy through industrial hellscapes like Peaky Blinders. It happens all the time – if all the slow-mo bits in the series were played at normal speed most episodes would be a good 20 minutes shorter. The only place you're going to find that level of very slow motion is with Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy's all-conquering YouTube channel.
Snoop Dogg covering 'Red Right Hand'
Not sure what urge this version of Nick Cave's Peaky Blinders touchstone is likely to answer, but it's handy as a catalyst to make you want to think about something that's not Peaky Blinders for a while.
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