Spoils of WAR

The Peaky Blinders hatch a treacherous plot with the Nazis as the gangland drama bows out

- WORDS: SEAN MARLAND. PHOTOS: NETFLIX

It's been over a decade since Tommy Shelby first strode on to our screens, and the Birmingham gangster, played by Cillian Murphy, has since become one of British TV's most iconic characters. Over the course of six seasons, he's battled the Mafia, rubbed shoulders with Winston Churchill and turned the Peaky Blinders gang into a criminal empire that spans the Atlantic - and now, his story finally comes to a close in this much-anticipated Netflix movie.

The final chapter of Tommy's tale opens as the bombs rain down on Birmingham in the early years of World War Two.

'I always wanted it to end this way,' says creator Steven Knight, who first set the series in the aftermath of World War One. 'I remember doing an interview after the first season in which I confidently said, "We're going to end as the story gets to World War Two and it's going to be a movie." It was very arrogant of me to imagine that that would happen, but here we are!'

DANGEROUS DEALS

The action picks up in 1940, six years after the end of the sixth season, and we rejoin Tommy as he lives in isolation in a rundown manor outside Birmingham.