Compelling gangster drama Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy, was the first production to benefit from investment through Screen Yorkshire’s Yorkshire Content Fund, ensuring the bulk of the production was filmed in Yorkshire. The highly cinematic BBC 2 drama has been lauded for its captivating performances, authentic costume & set design, atmospheric soundtrack and beautifully shot scenes, set against a backdrop of stunning period Yorkshire locations. It won ‘Best Drama’ at the Royal Television Society Awards in March 2014 and was voted third by audiences in the Radio Times annual Best TV shows poll. Peaky Blinders is a co-production between Caryn Mandabach Productions & Tiger Aspect, Screen Yorkshire and BBC.
Peaky Blinders was backed by Screen Yorkshire through the Yorkshire Content Fund, bringing major economic benefits to the region. The production not only employed crew and facilities, but also the services of a range of local enterprises who supplied an eclectic range of goods and services to ensure the authenticity of sets representing the period just after the First World War.
Peaky Blinders is set in 1919 in the lawless slum neighbourhoods of post war Birmingham, where Thomas Shelby’s (Cillian Murphy) family lead the most feared and powerful local gang, the Peaky Blinders. With Communists, rival gangs and a crate of stolen guns mixed into the volatile brew, Winston Churchill dispatches a brutal Belfast policeman (Sam Neill) to bring order at any cost.
Peaky Blinders © Caryn Mandabach Productions & Tiger Aspect, Screen Yorkshire and BBC.
Created by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises, Dirty Pretty Things) Peaky Blinders is directed by Otto Bathurst (Black Mirror, Criminal Justice) and Tom Harper (Scouting Book For Boys, This Is England ’86) and stars Cillian Murphy, Sam Neill and Helen McCrory.
Locations
Peaky Blinders hired production offices and studio space at Studio 81 on Kirkstall Road in leeds, it also filmed at locations including Leeds City Varieties, Bolton Abbey, Skipton, Undercliffe Cemetery Bradford, Peel Park Bradford, Leeds Town Hall, Ilkley Winter Gardens, Newby Hall & Gardens, Salts Mill, Saltaire, Brooke’s Mill, Huddersfield, Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, Braimes Pressings, Leeds, North Light Film Studios, Dalton Mill, St.Chad’s Church and Bolton Abbey, Skipton. The Vintage Carriages Trust, which owns Ingrow Museum of Rail Travel, provided carriages and a steam locomotive.