Peaky Blinders

[Baron Kurtz]

Anyone seen the first episode? How's the wardrobe (set in 1919, Birmingham UK)?

I'll be watching it on iPlayer tonight, so no spoilers please! Second episode is on BBC2 tomorrow evening.

cheers

bk

 

[herringbonekid]

not bad. everything is very dark and grey so difficult to get a really close look.

only thing that really grated for me, was the use of modern music... a man walks across a Birmingham street, into a dingy house, through a secret door into the gang 'headquarters'.
cue: slide blues rock guitar ???

 

[Baron Kurtz]

really? I'm looking forward to it already!:eusa_doh:

It would have been lovely if they had infused the whole show with a hurdy gurdy, yes! Murders to jaunty music hall numbers would also have been good.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

Hm...I would like to see it too. The first pictures looked nice. Stiff collar without a tie/bowtie strikes me as illogical. Wearing a stiff collar is more of a fuss than binding a tie? Maybe some "signature look"

So I read the name reffers to "sewing razor blades into the peaks of their caps" Our capmakers Simonds and Cordova should look out for some special orders in the future

 

[herringbonekid]

Stiff collar without a tie/bowtie strikes me as illogical. Wearing a stiff collar is more of a fuss than binding a tie? Maybe some "signature look"

the shirt without collar is usually the working class standard look in TV dramas. as these guys are working class gangsters, they might have wanted to 'spiv' them up a bit (by adding a stiff collar) but not too much (by adding a tie).

they will probably progress to ties in a couple of episodes as they gain power.

here are some of the real people behind the story:

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Watched the first episode yesterday not bad.
The music was the big problem. Boardwalk does use vintage music for sure an I always wait for the song at the end of the show as it is always picked as a comment on the episode
Will keep watching. They do need to contact Johnny for some caps .

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Watched the first episode last night.

I'm reasonably impressed. For a first episode, it set the stage relatively well, introducing all the major characters and plot lines. The rivalries between gangs, and between the rozzers and the gangs, the covert political influence, are all story lines that should prove productive, as is any attempt to address PTSD/shell shock in the post-WWI male population (a huge issue in late teens and into the 30s in the UK).

I must stand against the crowd in that I thought the music was perfect. From the beginning they are clearly drawing strongly on various "Wild West" and gangster memes (it's probably a reasonable comparison for the lawlessness of post-WWI British industrial centres) and opening with the Bad Seeds is a masterstroke - esp Red Right Hand, a combined reference to god's vengeful hand in Paradise Lost, the eponymous JT Rodgers book, and of course the Red Hand of Ulster Loyalist paramilitary fame (which obviously will be a major theme in the program). While it jars slightly with the time period, that is the intention I think, and is probably intended to parallel the portrayal with modern inner city environments. Head into a North or East London housing estate, or Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, certainly Glasgow, etc. and see who's in charge - police or gangs?

 

[Two Types]

I was irritated by the music. Although the music was good, I thought it out of place. Nice to know that was the Bad Seeds at the start. I didn't recognise it, but immediately thought of Barry Adamson's music when i heard it (and Adamson played with the Bad Seeds back on the first album, I think?).

My real criticism was the failure to give them West Midlands accents. The minor characters had good accents but some of the major actors weren't doing too well. Cillian Murphy seemed to have a Scouse accent rather than a Birmingham one. That might be acceptable if his older brother didn't have a West Midlands accent. And Helen McCrory's accent reminded me of actors in the thirties and forties who just couldn't betray their roots when putting on an accent.

Although i have no evidence to the contrary, I found the contrast between the clothes worn by the Brits and those worn by the Italians to be a little over emphasised.

All in all, I wasn't totally gripped by it, but will certainly continue watching.

P.S. For some reason, I was really irritated by the introduction of the Irish barmaid and her singing to the pub.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Had to increase the phowwwaaaaarrrr quotient somehow! A bit of a sausage fest otherwise.

Yes, Red Right Hand from the Nick Cave/Bad Seeds Murder Ballads album. I forgot to check the credits for the other music.

And yes, the Italians were very Italian, but I think the waiter was a bit stereotyped. I was half expecting him to stab the chap in the buttocks, football hooligan style. It was certainly true that there were (and are still, to some extent) enclaves where you might as well have been in Italy at that time. The fashions I'm certain would have been striking in those enclaves - straight off the boat, and all that - just as they were later with West Indian and Subcontinental immigrations "waves". There's more to come from them, I'd say, as I suspect the Italians were introduced to be the gang rivals (along with the Chinese).

 

[Baron Kurtz]

What are people's opinions on the hair? Some of the undercuts were a bit hipstery, and The Baroness reckons they were channeling the haircuts of 1980s NF "soldiers", who were in turn channeling Nazi haircuts (badly).

 

[Two Types]

Ii thought the haircuts were ok. I used to work in a photo archive that was full of 1920s/1930s photos and among manual labourers of the period serious 'undercuts' were certainly widely seen. The communists were also very keen on that style, as i recall. As were the Nazis. Ask the Baroness about the haircuts worn in 1980s by people who were into Laibach - a curious mix of the left, right and arty types.

I would certainly agree that Italians would have been recognisably different. I grew up in a town with a population of around 10% Italians and even in the 1980s they dressed different to the rest of us (in our ignorance, we looked at their brighter colours and tighter trousers, highlighted hair etc and called them poofs). That said, I remember seeing photos of London's Italian population in the 1920s/1930s and remember thinking they were little different to everyone else. Of course the difference might be that the photos would have been black and white whilst the tv version is in colour, meaning that the colour difference could be authentic.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Below, etc.

Ask the Baroness about the haircuts worn in 1980s by people who were into Laibach - a curious mix of the left, right and arty types.

 

[herringbonekid]

What are people's opinions on the hair?

i thought they were a bit too severe for 1918. looking through the 'vintage people on photo postcards' book, you don't see (m)any such hard edged undercuts in that time period.
not that i'm saying they wouldn't have existed at all, but i think they've gone for it in the programme because it says 'working class hard man' more than a moderately tapered short back and sides.

 

[herringbonekid]

p.s. i'm not against modern scores used in period films / TV dramas; just in this case i would have preferred something that sounded era and place inspired.

if they'd asked me i would have delved into UK music from that place and period then done a modern 'darker' take on it, to go with the hellish atmosphere.

there were also two White Stripes songs used; i like both songs, but thought they were badly chosen (and placed).

 

[Two Types]

I watched the second episode last night and enjoyed it. I'm still not convinced about certain elements but I will keep watching.
I won't mention any plot details but i did feel they would have come off worse in the fight at the start. Three men going into a gyspy camp, picking a fight and walking out pretty much unscathed?

 

[AntonAAK]

there were also two White Stripes songs used; i like both songs, but thought they were badly chosen (and placed).

Which ones were they?

 

[Two Types]

Out of interest: Since the title relates to the gang's caps, has anyone assessed whether the caps look authentic?

 

[herringbonekid]

Which ones were they?

'i think i smell a rat' and 'st. james infirmary'.

the first one in particular seemed out of place in the context of the scene.

 

[Dragon Soldier]

Haven't seen any of it yet, as I've taken to waiting until a few eps of a series are "out there" and watching them end to end of an evening.

However, I remember reading an article in one of the Sundays quite some time ago when this series was being shot and it stated that there were aspects which were deliberately inauthentic/wrong/anachronistic in order to convey a misremembered past.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

Their caps look rather small...but I am confused about the dates on the cards too.

The story of the series is meant to take place in 1919, right?