TV Review The Peaky Blinders

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Spoiler alerts - BBC TV The Peaky Blinders were a real crime gang who dominated the British Midlands and specially Birmingham, from the 1890's to the start of the Second World War. Their name came from claims that they wore razor blades in their distinctive cloth caps which they used to blind their enemies temporarily (by cutting foreheads and making blood spill into eyes during street fighting) and sometimes more permanently. The Blinders eventually lost power to Italian crime syndicates. The TV series, now in its 5th of a planned seven seasons, follows a fictionalized branch of the Blinders, the Shelby family, and their struggles with various rival crime factions, Fascists, Communists, and the Italians. It is a powerful and violent series, brilliantly acted (led by Cillian Murphy) with cameos by Tom Hardy, Sam Neill, Paddy Consadine and Benjamin Zephariah among others. The series has a great soundtrack too. Several pubs are now opening called The Peaky Blinders, though the main pub used in the series is called The Garrison. Arthur Chappell