Peaky Blinders to return to TV

Peaky Blinders is to return to TV to follow the exploits of a new generation of the Shelby family after World War Two.

The sixth series, which was broadcast in 2022, was billed at the time as the “the end of an epic story”, although producers did say the story would “continue in another form”.

A forthcoming Peaky Blinders film, set at the start of the war, will see Cillian Murphy reprise his role as gang leader Tommy Shelby.

That will now be followed by two new TV seasons, which “will be rooted in Birmingham and will tell the story of a city rising from the ashes of the Birmingham blitz”, creator Steven Knight said. “The new generation of Shelbys have taken the wheel and it will be a hell of a ride.”

The show will pick up in 1953, when “the race to own Birmingham’s massive reconstruction project becomes a brutal contest of mythical dimension”, the BBC said.

“This is a city of unprecedented opportunity and danger: with the Shelby family right at its blood-soaked heart.”

The show will be screened on the BBC in the UK and on Netflix around the world.

Murphy will be among the executive procucers, although the BBC declined to say whether any characters from the previous era would return on screen.

Peaky Blinders started in 2013, and has so far followed the street gang through the 1920s and 30s. It won best drama at the TV Bafta Awards in 2018.

The story will jump to the 40s for the film, titled The Immortal Man, which will star Murphy alongside Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan, Adolescence actor Stephen Graham and Dune’s Rebecca Ferguson.