Peaky Blinders season 5: Release date, cast, plot and everything you need to know

Peaky Blinders enjoyed one of its strongest runs to date in 2017, with series 4 seeing the Shelby clan face off against mob boss Luca Changretta (Adrien Brody).

Bar one big casualty (RIP John Shelby), Tommy and co. largely emerged from the gang war unscathed, which is perhaps unsurprising given that the BBC commissioned the fourth and fifth series of the show at the same time.

What’s more, creator Steven Knight is now planning the sixth and seventh series, with series 7 expected to mark the end of the show. “My ambition is to make it a story of a family between two wars, so always I’ve wanted to end it with the first air raid siren in Birmingham in 1939. It’ll take three more series [to reach that point],” he explained.

But before we get to all that, what do we know about series 5 so far?

Peaky Blinders season 5 release date: When can we expect it?

Following the series 4 finale, the BBC confirmed that series 5 will be hitting our screens in 2019, but didn’t get any more specific than that.

Series 4 started airing in November 2017 after filming had begun in March of that year. Filming on the fifth series kicked off on October 4, 2018, so new Peaky should be ready to air by summer 2019.

It’s possible the BBC might hold it back for a big Autumn launch, though. One big change this year is that, when the fifth series does arrive, it’ll be airing not on BBC Two but BBC One.

Peaky Blinders is world class drama at the top of its game and the time has arrived for it to move to the UK’s biggest channel. Steven Knight’s epic storytelling is authentic and utterly compelling and I want to give it the chance to be enjoyed by an even broader audience on BBC One,” said Charlotte Moore, Director of BBC Content.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better response to series four and the impact it had with young audiences. This move will also give BBC Two more creative headroom to experiment with new drama.”

The fifth series will be directed by Anthony Byrne (In Darkness, Ripper Street) and will be produced by Annie Harrison-Baxter (Marcella, In the Flesh).

Peaky Blinders season 5 cast: Who’s in it?

It’s been confirmed that many of the major cast from previous series – aside from Joe Cole – will be back, led once again by Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby.

That includes Helen McCrory (Aunt Polly), Paul Anderson (Arthur Shelby), Sophie Rundle (Ada Shelby), Kate Phillips (Linda Shelby) and Natasha O’Keeffe (Lizzie Stark), as well as Aidan Gillen and Jack Rowan (as father-and-son heavyweights Aberama and Bonnie Gold).

Charlie Murphy (Jessie Eden), Kingsley Ben-Adir (Col Ben Younger), Harry Kirton (Finn Shelby), Packy Lee (Johnny Dogs), Ned Dennehy (Charlie Strong), Ian Peck (Curly) and poet/musician Benjamin Zephaniah (Jeremiah Jesus) are also all returning.

One new face among the familiar is The Witch and Split actress Anya Taylor-Joy, whose casting as an as-yet-unnamed character was announced via the official BBC One Twitter account on October 12.

Bar a shock twist, we’ve likely seen the last of Tom Hardy as Alfie Solomons, after the ailing gangster betrayed Tommy in series 4 and ended up with a bullet in the face.

After the name check in last year’s finale, it seemed there was a chance we could see Al Capone in the fifth series, now that the Peaky Blinders have business with him.

“That’d be great,” Paul Anderson told Digital Spy. “The period [the series is set in] now, he was running Chicago, New York, it was him… and Michael (Finn Cole) is over there, he’s making friends with him, so it would be great if we had that introduction to the mob.”

However, it’s not going to happen, according to Knight. “There’s not gonna be any Al Capone. There isn’t, there really isn’t,” he confirmed, adding: “Series five will have a lot of (big-name guest stars), I think.”

Peaky Blinders season 5 plot: How does season 4 set it up?

After getting rid of both Luca Changretta and Alfie Solomons, Tommy is encouraged to take a break from the family business as Arthur explains “no-one wants to kill us”.

Unfortunately, the rest and relaxation doesn’t seem to agree with Tommy. His mental health issues begin to affect him on the three-month break, with Polly encouraging him to get help before he comes back to work with a new plan.

This involves him getting back in touch with Jessie Eden and promising her that “your cause is now my cause”, only for it to be a ruse for Tommy to get in with the Communist party and help the government deal with any issues.

“I can be of great use to you. I can give you the name of any Communist party member who is prepared to cross the line into armed revolution,” he tells the King’s Private Secretary (played by Donald Sumpter).

His one condition is that he can run as a Labour MP in the Birmingham South constituency, an election that Tommy wins by a landslide. Well, would you vote against a Peaky Blinder?

“I think [becoming a Member of Parliament], that’s just Tommy expanding his empire – his ambition is to have power in a lot of areas and that’s just another extension of his power,” Paul Anderson has said.

The story of Peaky Blinders will pick up in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash. Here’s the official synopsis for the new episodes: “Series five of Steven Knight’s crime family saga finds the world thrown into turmoil by the financial crash of 1929. Opportunity and misfortune are everywhere.

©  BBC

“When Tommy Shelby MP (Cillian Murphy) is approached by a charismatic politician with a bold vision for Britain, he realises that his response will affect not just his family’s future but that of the entire nation.”

Steven Knight said: “The story of the Peaky Blinders and of the Shelby family gets woven into the political fabric of Britain and Europe as the 1920s end and the thirties begin. Tommy Shelby faces the darkest force he has ever faced and his struggle is as relevant today as it was then.”

New filming pictures also hint that the new episodes will take the Shelbys to the US, with Finn Cole (Michael) and Anya Taylor-Joy shooting scenes in Liverpool – transformed into Detroit for the shoot.

Source: Read Full Article