To prepare for the return of Peaky Blinders, CultBox took a trip to the studio in Manchester earlier this year for a snoop around the set and a chat to some of the show’s cast and crew.

Here’s what we learned…

 

Bolton is the new London

Despite Season 2’s storyline seeping into the South, all six episodes are shot entirely in the north and Midlands, between locations in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. Though when it came to shooting some of the London scenes, the team found they had to look no further than Bolton!

“The London exteriors are quite… wow!”, said Grant Montgomery. “I think they’re fantastic – which we shot in Bolton – which was hilarious. You’d never think that you could find London in Bolton but you can!”

Helen McCory was also quick to praise the distinctive feel that shooting on location in the North was able to bring to the series, something she believes they wouldn’t have been able to find anywhere else:

“I think we have three days away in Chatsworth House for one character’s home, a new character that’s coming in, but apart from that. I mean you go around Manchester and it’s like Gotham City, with these amazing modern sort of shard like buildings next to great big red brick old warehouses, next to fantastic civic halls and beautiful architecture. We don’t have it in London in the same way.”

 

Season 2 is all about ‘more’!

The new season will up the ante in every respect, according to the producer, Laurie Borg. Starting with the amount of pressure that comes with living up to the success and expectation created by Season 1:

“After a few weeks of actually physically making the show, we began – [director, Colm McCarthy] began – to relax. But yeah, we felt a lot more pressure at the very beginning. I mean this year we’ve got 76 cast who talk. Last year we had 37. So suddenly we’ve doubled.”

 

It may be historical fiction, but Peaky Blinders continues to address hard-hitting, real world issues just as prevalent today

Season 1 dealt head on with the damaging effects of war on surviving soldiers and how the trauma of combat manifested itself in the often violent and unpredictable behaviour of the afflicted. Today we know it as post-traumatic stress disorder, though almost 100 year after the world occupied by the Peaky Blinders, and as a society we’re still dealing with very similar themes, something acknowledged by Cillian Murphy:

“I suppose that condition didn’t have a name back in 1919, where we first meet them last season. So these men were just thrown back into society and there was no such thing as counselling or anything like that, you just had to deal with it. And so many of them were self-medicating, or doing whatever they could to manage it. And it made for a massive societal kind of change.

“They came back so damaged, sort of carrying around these images and memories, many of them suffering from what we would now know as PTSD.”

And according to Helen McCrory, it’s not just the men’s suffering that the show captures, but the challenges faced by female friends and family members of those affected by the psychological damage caused by war:

“The hopelessness and the helplessness that Polly feels will resonate with anyone who has a member of the family that’s going through mental health issues.”

 

Striking music will still be important part of the Peaky Blinders experience, but expect a more British feel to Season 2

The Peaky Blinders soundtrack in Season 1 made a big impact with many fans, bringing a modern rock and roll swagger to a period drama with huge impact. And while we’re assured we won’t be losing that distinctiveness with Season 2, fans should expect one significant change, according to Laurie Borg:

“I think to be honest one of my biggest criticisms, and Colm’s as well, was that it [the music] was all American and I said, ‘well, hang on a minute, we are creating something very British and I think we’ve got bands as big, from the Arctic Monkeys to whoever we want’.

“There’s a wealth of music out there and I think they used it beautifully with Jack White and The Black Keys, but I don’t know if it resonates enough sometimes, it’s just a little bit divisive, a bit on the nose. So we’re sort of looking at it slightly differently, which is going to be a bit of a twist.”

 

Helen McCrory is just as cool off screen as she is on

Getting to spend time on set with a cast and crew as talented and friendly as the Peaky Blinders gang is always a pleasure, but enjoying the company of someone as funny, quirky and cool as Helen McCrory is a rare treat.

Candid, insightful, self-deprecating and entertaining, many of her most amusing answers from our interview aren’t publishable on a family-friendly website like CultBox. Which made her parting words before being swept off to resume shooting her scenes, particularly apt: “Good luck with editing that!”

 

> Buy the complete Season 1-2 boxset on Amazon.

Watch the Season 2 launch trailer…

Are you looking forward to Season 2? Let us know below…