Peaky Blinders review – Tommy Shelby’s back where we want him to be: in all kinds of trouble

It’s war on three fronts, across two continents for the Birmingham gang leader. Without his beloved Aunt Polly, will he be able to take it?

Man walks into a bar. Herringbone cap, baby face, topcoat flapping in silhouette, weaponry secreted in case things turn sour. Which they always do. “Glass of water, please,” he says. The French stereotypes at table four give him the evils. Nobody orders soft drinks in these parts if they know what’s good for them. You could cut the tension with a – well, a razor blade concealed in the brim of your cap would do the job.

It’s 1933, in a remote outpost of la Francophonie called Miquelon Island, which, as you know, is just off the coast of Newfoundland, and, therefore, beyond Canadian and American jurisdictions. For years, these Gallic stereotypes have been ferrying bootleg whiskey to Boston. But, now, prohibition is ending and their business model is collapsing.

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‘It’s the end of a big adventure’: Cillian Murphy bids farewell to Peaky Blinders

Cillian Murphy’s icy stare has transfixed viewers around the world as Brummie gang boss Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders. As the stellar series reaches its finale, he talks about music, empathy and trying not to overthink things

Cillian Murphy pops up on screen with the discomfited gaiety of a man about to submit to dentistry. He is courteous and friendly, but without ever quite shaking off the impression he would rather be almost anywhere else. It’s just before Christmas, and the rampant Omicron variant of Covid-19 has put paid to in-person meetings. You don’t get the impression Murphy minds too much. At a Zoom’s remove, he sits back in his chair, hair restored to luxuriant cruising length after the savage chop required for Peaky Blinders. His storied peepers – organs that have inspired countless column inches and exhaustive maritime imagery – are, for once, hard to discern.

I recognise the spare white wall behind him, which is decorated with a poster for the band Grizzly Bear and a painting. This must be his famous basement. In the Dublin home he shares with his wife, Yvonne McGuinness, an artist, and their teenage sons Malachy and Aran, the basement is Murphy’s fortress of solitude. He has spent a lot of time here over lockdown, noodling around on guitars, scrolling the news about the pandemic and recording impressively eclectic radio programmes for BBC 6 Music.

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Cillian Murphy: ‘I was in awe of how Helen McCrory lived her life’

The star of Peaky Blinders on his late colleague, how he convinced the producers to cast him rather than Jason Statham as Tommy Shelby – and returning to the monster-movie genre in A Quiet Place Part II

Cillian Murphy, star of the new horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II, is something to behold: X-ray eyes at once penetrating and ethereally blue, cheekbones so pronounced you could stretch out and go to sleep on them. Unfortunately, the beholding will have to wait. We have barely exchanged greetings over Zoom when his voice breaks up, the screen freezes and the room falls silent. A quiet place, indeed.

We switch to phones. We can do this, I tell him. “I have faith,” he replies, in a soothing Cork accent that compensates for the lack of visuals. Murphy’s gift for intensity has made him a natural fit for characters damaged (Dunkirk, The Edge of Love) or outright villainous (Batman Begins, Red Eye), but today he is quick to laugh and keen to talk. He is speaking from a flat in Manchester, where he is staying while he shoots the sixth and final series of Peaky Blinders. That stylish crime drama, which rocketed from BBC Two cult success to global phenomenon, revolves around a 1920s Birmingham gang led by Murphy as the vicious Tommy Shelby. With his eyes, looks could kill – although he keeps razor blades in the brim of his cap, just in case.

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Helen McCrory swore friends to secrecy about cancer diagnosis

Actor did not want her professional or charitable work overshadowed by illness in final weeks, says friend

Helen McCrory, the Peaky Blinders actor who died from cancer on Friday, “swore friends to secrecy” as she underwent treatment, her friend Carrie Cracknell has revealed.

Cracknell, who directed McCrory in a 2014 production of Medea, said the performer did not want her illness overshadowing her family and professional life. McCrory’s husband, Damian Lewis, announced the news that his wife died peacefully at home aged 52.

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Helen McCrory, star of Peaky Blinders and Harry Potter, dies aged 52

Actor was also known for her roles in the films The Queen and The Special Relationship

The actor Helen McCrory has died at the age of 52. McCrory was best known for her roles in the films The Queen and The Special Relationship and the Harry Potter franchise, and TV series including Peaky Blinders.

Her husband, fellow actor Damian Lewis, announced her death on Twitter, saying that McCrory had died “peacefully at home”. Lewis said: “I’m heartbroken to announce that after an heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died … surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family.”

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‘Downton Abbey is ludicrous’: the biggest TV hits we’ve never seen – until now

Continuing our series on a year of bumper pandemic viewing, our critics finally watch the shows that had passed them by, from Downton to Twin Peaks

As with my experience of so many modern cultural touchstones, I first came to 24 via a Simpsons parody. Being only seven years old in 2001, when the 24-episode “real time” thriller first aired, my knowledge of Kiefer Sutherland’s exhausting counter-terror mission to stop the assassination of a presidential hopeful came from a 2007 Simpsons episode starring Lisa and Bart in a split-screen chase to hold off the detonation of a powerful stink bomb at Springfield Elementary.

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