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Peaky Blinders’ creator Steven Knight has revealed he is in secret talks with Britain’s oldest dance company – about a request to take the series into a totally unexpected direction.

Rambert, which gave its first performance in 1926 during the era when the series is set, has asked the prolific writer if it can turn Peaky Blinders into a ballet.

He might not own a tutu, but Steven said he was all ears about the plan which would follow previous moves to turn Peaky Blinders into everything from Sadler's beers and spirits to a leading fashion range by Garrison Tailors

This week, Steven met up with the company formerly known as Ballet Rambert to hold preliminary talks and give the ballet idea his blessing.

(Image: Graham Young) (Image: Robert Viglasky)

The prolific Oscar-nominated writer of Dirty Pretty Things said: “I had a meeting with Rambert because they said they were interested in turning Peaky Blinders into a ballet.

“I wasn’t supposed to say anything about it, but I don’t mind talking about things.

“That’s pretty much it and all I know is that they want to turn it into dance.

(Image: Garrison Tailors)

“I don’t know where they would do it, but there was a view to premiering it here in Birmingham.”

Based at London’s South Bank, Rambert’s history dates back to former Ballet Russes dancer Marie Rambert arriving in London after fleeing the outbreak of the First World War.

In 1926 Marie Rambert and her students presented the ballet A Tragedy of Fashion by Frederick Ashton – an event at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith said to be the birth of British ballet.

Now it could soon be even more famous for turning a gangster TV series into a Brummie ballet.

Steven Knight and ballet

(Image: Darren Quinton)

Despite becoming one of the world’s leading screenwriters and directing his own movies such as Locke with Tom Hardy and this September's 2018 release Serenity starring Oscar-winning Matthew McConaughey, Steven has admitted in the past he’s not a huge cinemagoer.

Has the blacksmith’s son who was the youngest child of seven ever seen a ballet?

“Yes I have, and although I’m not a massive ballet aficionado I do know what it means and dance is very big these days,” he said.

So could we look forward to him making a guest appearance in tights at the premiere?

“I haven’t got the legs for it, I’m afraid,” he laughed.

New studio plans

(Image: © Black Country Living Museum Production credit: A Caryn Mandabach and Tiger Aspect Production)

Steven was guest speaker at a Birmingham Press Club lunch which attracted an audience of 70 people to Cornwall Street’s Opus restaurant on Friday, May 4.

During the official Press Club interview with ITV News Central’s Bob Warman, Steven said plans were still underway to create a studio with six sound stages in the city that would use local craft skills include computer game designers and special effects experts.

The complex would be called Mercian Film Studios – after the Anglo-Saxon Midlands kingdom.

It could also include a residential zone and entertainment facilities including live theatre, bars and a cinema and would thrive because London’s studios were always fully booked.

The buildings would be “modern and environmentally friendly” and the site could also attract Channel 4.

Steven told me later that there was no timetable for an official announcement but it could be the autumn and might then take up to two-and-a-half years to build.

Peaky Blinders is heading towards series five, six and seven

(Image: Tim Easthope / BirminghamLive)

Steven said he was confident the BBC would extend Peaky Blinders to a seventh series, even though the fifth series wasn’t due to begin shooting until the autumn.

This will push back any plans to make a movie from the hit show but he was still hopeful that more of the future episodes could be shot in and around Birmingham.

As for the accents, he said the ‘Brummie tune’ made it one of the most difficult of all to do.

Rather than hire voice coaches who might ‘frighten’ actors, he said his philosophy was to hire the best cast possible and let them give a performance first and “worry about the complaints about the accents” afterwards.

(Image: Graham Young)

He added that one of the things that had surprised him the most was that Brummies themselves had taken to Peaky Blinders.

“I wondered if it would be popular in Britain but not in Birmingham, because Brummies are like that,” he laughed.

“That is a strange compliment.

“Birmingham is not a place to bang its own drum... but the series has been a hit in places like Russia, Turkey, Mexico and the US.

“Even some of my heroes like Bob Dylan like it and I spent three hours with (US rap star) Snoop Dogg in his London hotel room because he said it reminded him of how he got involved with gang culture.

“It’s a family story... and we have all got relatives we don’t like.”

Top tips for young writers

(Image: Nick Wilkinson)

Taking questions from the floor which including one about tips for writers who might want to follow in his footsteps, Steven added: “Whatever you right, finish it – unless you run out of petrol.

“In the early stages (of Peaky Blinders) the BBC was saying: ‘Can’t we make this in the East End?’.

“Writers have to be able to write about the Midlands.

“And it has to be good to get attention.

“But then we’ve always been creative in the Midlands – it’s where the Arts and Crafts movement started and Birmingham has always been a radical city.

“We just have to carry on doing that and one low budget hit can create a whole scene.”

Steven’s next film release will be the biopic Woman Walks Head, due for release in June with Jessica Chastain in the lead role.

(Image: Darren Quinton)

He is also working on adapting a series of Charles Dickens stories for a Taboo-style TV series.

Steven said if Dickens was alive today he would be working in films and TV, and the challenge would be to get the dialogue right as people speak in a different way to how some writers think they have to write the spoken word.

“The way people talk is very odd, they can say the opposite of what they mean,” said Steven.

“But everybody dreams and in your dreams the dialogue is brilliant so everyone can do it.

“Because everybody dreams, you just have to access the part of your mind that dreams (to write the dialogue) – but driving while thinking about it is very dangerous!”

Blues to lose – but stay up

(Image: Roy Smiljanic / BCFC.com)

The lifelong Birmingham City fan said he was confident Blues would not get relegated this weekend, even though he “expected them to lose” their final match of the season _ at home to promotion chasing Fulham.

And he added: “I do hope Villa go up (to the Premiership.”

Who is Steven Knight?

(Image: Roy Smiljanic / BCFC.com)

Born in the Wiltshire village of Mildenhall in 1959, Steven’s family moved back to Birmingham when he was six months old and they have their roots in Small Heath and Hay Mills.

A former advertising copywriter who began to write jokes for Jasper Carrott and scripts for his TV series The Detectives co-starring Robert Powell Steven’s determination to mythologise the stories he used to hear about 1920s’ gangsters led him to writing Peaky Blinders at the same time as he was pursuing a major film career.

(Image: Darren Quinton)

Already fuelled by co-creating Celador’s worldwide hit series Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, winning an Oscar nomination in 2003 for Dirty Pretty Things opened more doors.

Now based in London, Steven has worked with Hollywood hot shots like Brad Pitt and Steven Spielberg, who turned up at the LA premiere of the Birmingham-shot Ready Player One wearing a flat cap.

His scripts have attracted a string of major stars from Albert Finney and Michael Gambon (Amazing Grace) to Viggo Mortensen Eastern Promises), Helen Mirren (The Hundred-Foot Journey) and Bradley Cooper (Burnt).

In November, 2016 Steven received the Baird Medal, the highest honour that can be bestowed by the Royal Television Society (Midlands Centre).