Peaky Blinders is a British period crime drama television series created by Steven Knight. Set in Birmingham, it follows the exploits of the Peaky Blinders crime gang in the direct aftermath of the First World War. The fictional gang is loosely based on a real urban youth gang of the same name who were active in the city from the 1880s to the 1910s Peaky Blinders is a crime drama centred on a family of mixed Irish Traveller and Romani origins based in Birmingham, England, starting in 1919, several months after the end of the First World War. It centres on the Peaky Blinders street gang and their ambitious, cunning crime boss Tommy Shelby (Murphy). The gang comes to the attention of Major Chester Campbell (Neill), a detective chief inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary sent over by Winston Churchill from Belfast, where he had been sent to clean up the city of the Irish Republican Army flying columns, the Communist Party of Great Britain, street gangs, and common criminals. Winston Churchill (played by Andy Nyman in series 1 and Richard McCabe in series 2) charges him with suppressing disorder and uprising in Birmingham and recovering a stolen cache of arms meant to be shipped to Libya. The first series concludes on 3 December 1919—"Black Star Day", the event where the Peaky Blinders plan to take over Billy Kimber's betting pitches at the Worcester Races.
