Steven Knight Loves Tom Brady’s Birmingham City Revolution

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'Peaky Blinders' creator Steven Knight raved about the impact NFL legend Tom Brady is having on Birmingham City FC since taking over. Whilst attending the red carpet launch of his new Disney+ TV show ‘A Thousand Blows’, life-long Birmingham City fan Steven discussed how his new show's origins are similar to that of 'Peaky Blinders'.    His new show reunites him with actor Stephen Graham in a British Boxing drama set in Victorian England. The pair attended the BFI London Film Festival Red-Carpet Gala for ‘A Thousand Blows’ at London’s Southbank Centre. The show arrives on Disney+ in 2025. Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00There's two elements to it, which I have intentionally bolted together, which is, that were concurrent

00:07at the time. So in the 1880s, 1890s, there was this very vibrant bare-knuckle boxing

00:13scene in the East End of London. There was also the emergence of what we now recognise

00:18as boxing in the West End of London, the Queensbury rules, boxing with gloves. But then, anarchically,

00:25apart from that, there was this reality of a thing called the Forty Elephants, which

00:29was a gang of women who operated from the Elephant and Castle, and they specialised

00:36in contricks, robbery, but also they would enter a department store like Harrods or Selfridges,

00:44and they would just invade the place and cause mayhem and steal so many clothes and put them

00:49on so that when they left, they looked like elephants, and they could barely get through

00:54the doors as they left. So it's just this real thing, this real piece of history that,

00:59as a writer, you wouldn't dare invent.

01:02Which obviously, when you hear about those antics, you must surely think to yourself,

01:06like, why has no one written this screenplay before?

01:08It is absolutely the case, and I've wanted to do a Forty Elephants thing for seven or

01:14eight years, because when I first found out about it, and found out about the characters

01:18about Mary Carr and Alice Diamond, real people who lived extraordinary lives, who took no

01:26nonsense, who were incredibly strong and powerful, you just think, this is a gift for a writer.

01:32Was it a similar spark that you felt towards them as when you first found out about The

01:35Piggy Blinders, perhaps?

01:36Absolutely.

01:37I hope you need to tell their story.

01:38It's absolutely the same. It's hidden or forgotten working-class history that the history books

01:44didn't bother with, and yet it's so much more interesting and fascinating than a lot

01:49of the stuff you read. I think it takes a genius to make history boring, and this is

01:56just, you just dip into history and find these incredible characters.

02:00I know you're a proud rummy. Can I ask you what you thought about the Tom Brady Birmingham

02:03City Revolution?

02:04I could not be more happy. Are you a blues fan?

02:08My dad is.

02:09Oh, really? I couldn't be more happy. It's fantastic. I never thought it would happen.

02:14I was at the Wrexham game, David Beckham sitting in front of me, Tom Brady sitting

02:18next to me. Incredible, and let's just hope that our dreams are going to come true.

02:24I'm proper happy for you all.

02:26Keep writing.

02:27See you later.

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