Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy is on this week's Radio Times
Tommy Shelby is back to face his most explosive reckoning yet. Steven Knight and Cillian Murphy reveal why the film is a warning from history.
For 13 years, the name Tommy Shelby has echoed through British television, ever since audiences first met the razor-sharp gangster riding a black stallion through the streets of Birmingham in the opening scenes of Peaky Blinders.
When the series started on BBC Two in 2013, few could have predicted that Steven Knight's crime saga would grow into a global phenomenon. Yet that's exactly what happened.
Now the story takes a bold step forward with the film The Immortal Man, arriving on Netflix this week. The film transports the Shelby saga into the early days of the Second World War and at the centre of it all is Cillian Murphy, an actor who has lived with Shelby for over a decade.
In our interview, Murphy explains how he prepares for the role and how playing Shelby is unlike anything he's experienced in his career – "Tommy is driving the motorbike and I'm in the sidecar".
Knight has described Shelby as "a good man doing bad things to a good end", and the story now places him in a moment of historical reckoning, which Knight sees as a timely warning for us now.
Whether it truly marks the end of the Shelby story remains to be seen, but it feels like a fitting chapter in a saga that began quietly on BBC Two and grew into a worldwide obsession.
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Also in this week's Radio Times:
- Martin Clunes brings depth and charm to a drama about the downfall of Huw Edwards.
- Dougray Scott portrays an enigmatic headmaster in a new teen drama set in a school for scoundrels.
- Bestselling author Jo Nesbø introduces his new Scandi noir crime series.
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Authors
Shem Law is the brand editor of Radio Times, and the 20th person to hold that esteemed position in over 100 years. He wasn't allowed a television growing up, but over the years he has rather overcompensated for that fact.
