BBC series Peaky Blinders is getting a Netflix feature film tomorrow (March 6), and fans are only just realising there’s a true story behind the Cillian Murphy-led drama
The story of Tommy Shelby is set to come to an end this week when the feature-length film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, is released on Friday (March 6). While the feature film isn’t thought to be the end of the Peaky Blinders franchise, the film will wrap up Tommy’s (played by Cillian Murphy) story and leave the door open for a sequel series that follows a new generation of the Shelby family.
The film will be released in cinemas on Friday before eventually coming to Netflix on March 20, but as fans get ready to say goodbye to Cillian Murphy’s character and usher in a new era of the Birmingham street gang, there’s one part of the story they’ve only just pieced together. While the events featured in the hit series are fictional, the Peaky Blinders gang are actually based on real people.
However, the BBC series, which began airing in 2013, is not based on a true story. The Peaky Blinders were a real street gang in Birmingham, but their heyday was much earlier than depicted in the series. While the show’s narrative begins in 1919, shortly after the end of World War I, the real Peaky Blinders were mostly active in the 1880s.
According to Sky History, the first printed reference to the Peaky Blinders comes from an edition of the Birmingham Mail printed in March of 1890, so it’s likely the term was widely used on the streets of Birmingham in the 1880s.
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Sky History also pointed out the real-life Peaky Blinders operated at a much lower scale than Shelby and his gang in the show. While the real gang were notorious for robberies and violent acts, they didn’t get up to half the dramatic scenes shown in the television show.
An Instagram video from historian Dr Amy Boyington also confirmed the Peaky Blinders were a real street gang in Birmingham, where she agreed with Sky History’s assessment that “the truth is far less glamorous” than the show.
Explaining where the gang’s name came from, she said: “It is thought that they were called ‘peaky’ because that was a term given to the flat caps with the peaks. Blinder was a colloquial Birmingham term that was given to people who looked dapper or smart.
“The Peaky Blinders were almost famous for dressing well. They were well known for wearing tailored suits and caps, and the wealthier members wore silk scarves and starch collars. They did look really good, and as a result, they were easily identifiable to the police and other rival gangs.”
Despite dressing well and looking smart, Amy insisted the real Peaky Blinders – and, indeed, the fictional ones on TV – were not people you wanted to “mess around with”. In fact, some of them committed serious crimes.
Sharing an image of one member of the gang, she added: “These were men you did not want to mess around with. This gang member, George Williams, killed a police officer. And many of his fellow gang members were guilty of terrible acts of violence.”
It’s not just the Peaky Blinders that were a real gang, either. The first series of the TV show sees Tommy Shelby and his gang face off against the Birmingham Boys, headed up by Billy Kimber (played by Charlie Creed-Miles). Not only were the Birmingham Boys a real gang, but unlike the fictional members of Peaky Blinders, Billy Kimber was a real person, too.
Kimber was one of the UK’s most powerful organised crime bosses after setting up the Birmingham Boys at the end of the Edwardian era in the early 1910s.
But the show did change a few things about Kimber’s character. He was given a Cockney accent in the series, but was actually born in Aston, which today is a suburb of inner Birmingham.
The way Kimber died was also changed in the show for dramatic effect. Those who watched the first series will remember that Shelby actually shot Kimber in the head to end his life, but in reality, Kimber lived to the age of 63 before passing away at Mount Stuart Nursing Home in Torquay in 1945.
By the time Kimber died, the Birmingham Boys were defunct and its power over Birmingham’s criminal underworld had transferred to the Sabini gang in the 1930s – who are also featured in a fictional form in Peaky Blinders.
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man releases in cinemas on 6th March and on Netflix on 20th March.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
