Rambert strikes gold with Peaky Blinders

Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby
at New Theatre Oxford
from Tuesday, October 15 to Saturday 19

Review by JON LEWIS

Gangway to Power

In a remarkable prequel to the popular BBC drama series Peaky Blinders, writer Steven Knight has teamed up with the artistic director of the Rambert Dance Company, Benoit Swan Pouffer to tell the early story of gang leader and politician Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby.

This is a dance show that is transformed into a gig. Roman GianArthur’s driving rock and punk score is played live behind a haze of dry ice by cellist and bassist Joe Downard, drummer Yarron Engler and vocals by Birmingham-based singer Mitchell Emms. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ hit Red Right Hand, the theme tune to the programme, is played twice, choreographed by Swan Pouffer as an iconic Michael Jackson-esque shuffle from the Shelby gang who pose cooly as if for the front page of the Birmingham newspaper.

The narrative is driven by the much-missed voice of the late Brummie poet Benjamin Zephania who played a pastor in the programme. Zephania provides insights into Tommy’s mind at key moments in the story, heightening a sense of myth and folklore. Another ghost appears in voiceover, with the voice of Helen McCrory’s Polly playing over her on-stage successor (Simone Damberg Würtz, looking like McCrory with hairstyle and outfits).

Conor Kerrigan plays war hero Tommy, emerging with his brothers from the gas-filled trenches already a hardened killer. The choreography of these early scenes with soldiers rising and falling hint at the later scenes of street battles that take place near spark-filled factory floors (designer, Moi Tran). In civvy street, Tommy falls in love with club chanteuse Grace (Naya Lovell) but to quote Billy Idol, his celebrations become a bad day for a white wedding.

The second half of the story follows Tommy’s fall into an opium-filled hallucinogenic phantasmagoria of overindulgence, the stage filled with slow motion images of destructive coupling. It takes the motivational drive of his family and the advancement of the rival gang wearing fedora hats responsible for Grace’s murder at the altar, to drive Tommy and his family towards a thrillingly executed final rumble.

Take a look at the stunning shots of the show here. In pictures: Peaky Blinders as you’ve never seen them before:

https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/lifestyle/peaky-blinders-as-you-ve-never-seen-them-before-9387509/

15 Oct 2024 THIS is pretty spectacular! Well worth arranging a night out up in Oxford.Rambert’s Peaky Blinders…

The Rambert has struck gold with this production.