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Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has given a revealing insight into how he writes the drama.

He pens every word of the series – as he says it’s his most personal project, his ‘baby’ which he guards preciously.

He won’t let anyone else write it – and he doesn’t like the cast ad-libbing, although the one exception is Tom Hardy.

Steven reveals: “I don’t like ad-libbing. I think it can lead to confusion and phrases that aren’t in the period.

“There are exceptions and Tom Hardy is one, as he tends to ad lib. It’s his style and that of the character, who flits all over the place.

“And yes, it was Tom who ad-libbed ‘Listen, sweetie’ in the last series.”

So what is the hardest part of writing Peaky Blinders?

“Very little, it’s a labour of love for me,” says Steven, 58, a proud Brummie who based much of the story around the tales he was told by his grandparents about gangs in Small Heath.

“The writing just happens, it’s quite fast and enjoyable.

“The hardest part is making selections and deciding how the characters move forward and what to leave behind. It’s very hard for me to let a character go.

“The joy of Peaky is I am left alone by the BBC to get on with it.

“Most of the stuff I do is for America these days, feature films which are commissioned,” he says, as shooting recently finished on his Hollywood film Serenity, starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Uma Thurman.

“You do the draft and the studio has opinions on how they want it changed, it’s the studio process. You have to deal with it.

“But I write all of Peaky, I’m just not very good at letting it go. I just can’t do it. It would be so much easier on my thumbs if I could.

“I write early in the mornings on a computer, often at 3am if I’m in LA with jet lag, otherwise at 6am.

“I try to write Peaky as if I’m dreaming. Stuff happens and you are creating it, but in the dream you think you are observing it.

“I take characters, put them together and see what they say to each other.

(Image: Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd 2017)

“I let them control it, then I go back and see if it makes any sense.

“I find it flows quite easily. If I start thinking about it too much, it goes wrong.”

But could it really end after series five, as Steven has said?

And does he still want it to end with the first sirens of the Second World War sounding in Birmingham?

He’s still undecided.

“It might be the last, I don’t know, we will see how it goes.

“There is certainly the interest and there’s a ton of life left in Peaky. I don’t want to pull the plug while it’s still vibrant.

“I might do another one and then a film.

“And yes, we could still do a musical. I know the fans hate the idea but I don’t care! I think it would work. Why not?

“Ending it in 1939 would mean a leap forward in time, but that could be a fast forward at the end of the last episode.”

Executive producer Jamie Glazebrook certainly wants the drama to continue beyond five series.

He says: “If Steven said, ‘I know how we can keep telling the story’, no-one would say no to that. We would all be queuing up to work on it.”