Inside the Big Issue: Peaky Blinders and the rise of the working-class superhero

When Peaky Blinders first aired on BBC Two back in 2013, its creator Steven Knight already had lofty ambitions. He said at the time that he would like to end with a movie set during the Second World War, after having covered the entire interwar years through the eyes of Tommy Shelby and his gang across multiple series.

Knight smiles, recalling his vision for a show which averaged a handy, but hardly exceptional, 2.38 million viewers for its first series. “Leonard Cohen said all you need to be a writer is arrogance and inexperience. That displayed both!”

Yet somehow, Knight’s audacious plan has come true. And after six series, graduating to BBC One and more than doubling its audiences for the most recent two outings, it arrived on the big screen before a final resting place on Netflix. It is not just the size of the audience that has expanded since the early days of Peaky Blinders. To say the stakes have been raised for Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is a massive understatement. Because whereas series one concluded with Tommy and his crew attempting to take over some betting pitches at Worcester Races, now the Peaky Blinders have the power to decide whether Hitler and fascism triumph in the Second World War.

In this week’s Big Issue, we chat to Steven Knight all about the new film and the world of Peaky Blinders.

What else is in this week’s Big Issue?

It our B-Corp special!

From race tracks to dinner plates, like-minded enterprises are doing business a little bit differently. B Corps are companies that balance profit with genuine social purpose. It’s a vital, ever-growing movement that aims to change the world. B Lab established B Corp certification in 2006 with a simple anchoring principle: ‘There is no planet B’. These are the B Corps. Meet them in this week’s mag.

Paralympians have a mountain to climb just to compete

Winter sport has long been associated with expensive equipment and luxury travel to mountain regions. But for athletes with disabilities hoping to compete in the Winter Paralympics, the cost of specialist adaptive gear can raise that barrier even further

Debt doesn’t define you

When Bethan fled from domestic violence with her two young children, they were plunged into homelessness and financial uncertainty. In the decade since, she has fought for security for her family, but paying bills and covering rent as a single mother has been unmanageable at times. Debt became overwhelming.

Bethan is far from alone. More than half of adults in the UK (51%) have experienced problem debt at some point in their lives, charity StepChange said on Debt Awareness Week. But help is out there.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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