Steven Knight may have concluded the hit BBC gangster drama Peaky Blinders with the sixth season, but he exclusively teased the audience through Yahoo that the story has the potential to continue in different ways. Say, a film?
While fans felt that a lot more could have been explored had Knight talked about an extension. But, they weren’t always such enthusiasts to begin with.
The lead – Cillian Murphy, and co-star Benjamin Zephaniah, had their initial doubts about the show when the pilot aired on BBC. The latter once said in an interview with Birmingham Live that the cast was highly anxious about the reception, owing to the Birmingham accent.
The Birmingham Accent Had The Cast Worried
The Birmingham accent, often called Brummie, is a monotone accent. According to Pronunciation Studio, the people living in Birmingham tend to stretch the words when they stress on one.
Cillian Murphy told Radio Times that the accent is a “tricky one, it’s not an easy one.”
“I hung out with Steve, and we went to the actual Garrison pub in Birmingham with his Brummie mates,” he said. “And they’re singing Birmingham City songs and telling all sorts of stories, and I was recording on my iPhone, and then I took that home, and used it to try and track the accents, you know.”
Before the audience started to embrace the show, BBC had alerted Knight, according to Zephaniah, that the accent could become a problem.
Cillian Murphy Wasn’t Sold On The Potential Initially
After arriving on Netflix, Steven Knight felt that the show really took off as the audience in the States is always interested in gruff gangster-focused shows.
“People in America are willing to watch something set in Birmingham, whereas I don’t think that was necessarily true when we started.”
Cillian Murphy once spoke with Zephaniah about his concerns regarding the theme of the series as the latter told Mirror –
“I remember sitting down with Cillian and saying that a gangster show set in 1920s Birmingham, we didn’t think it was going to take off, really.”
Talking about the show’s slow-burn success, Zephaniah said –
“The BBC warned us that after the first episode, people would complain. After the second episode, they would complain a bit less. By the third episode, they would forget about the accent and be into the story. That’s exactly what happened. Nobody talks about the accent now.”
Steven Knight is currently working on a follow-up film that will mark the “end of the road” for Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby and the rest of the Peaky Blinders’ cast, as per Radio Times. It is expected to begin filming this year.
Source: Birmingham Live, Independent
