Steven Knight, the creator of ‘Peaky Blinders,’ has gone and created another British crime drama series, and fans are bloody loving it.
The six-part series, called ‘This Town,’ is set in 1981 Birmingham and Coventry - a time where the music scene was budding, as was violence, crime and political unrest. The show follows the lives of four young people who decide to form a band during this time of societal and political turmoil.
Knight explained that his hit TV show ‘Peaky Blinders’ was based on the stories his parents told him about growing up in Birmingham, while ‘This Town’ draws from his own experiences of growing up in the same town but during a different period.
"I wanted to do something partly from my own experience, as I grew up in an environment not entirely dissimilar,” he said.
“The music was around at the time and for us it was ‘other’, it was different and everyone liked it,” he continued, referring to the rise of ska and two-tone music in Birmingham and Coventry at the time.
"I’m not trying to set out to make a political or social point at all, but at this time a particular thing happened where a particular type of music attracted equally black and white people…
"...I thought that was quite an important thing to illustrate. It’s depicting working class life without any sense of sorrow or pity and, rather than that, seeing the glory and the glamour of it."
The first episode of the new show aired on BBC One over the weekend, with the whole series now available on BBC iPlayer, and fans have taken to social media to share their thoughts.
“This series is spot on, especially the music side of things,” one person wrote.
“Far more interesting and insightful than I expected. I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode. I was a young man in 1981 and the themes and events that surrounded me at the time are well represented,” another wrote.
While the feedback is mostly positive, plenty of people have pointed out that the Birmingham accents aren’t fully on point.
"This Town living up to expectations. Been class so far (apart from some of the accents),” a fan commented.
“Loving it so far, but the accents need some work,” another wrote.
Unfortunately ‘This Town’ is currently only available on BBC iPlayer, so you’ll only be able to watch it with a VPN in New Zealand. But here’s hoping it’ll come to our streaming platforms soon, ‘cause we’re intrigued to give it a watch!
You can have a geeze of the trailer up top.
