A new festival is being launched celebrating the hit TV show Peaky Blinders.
The show's creator Steven Knight has teamed up with AEG Presents to create a "spectacular, immersive" event, in association with Caryn Mandabach Productions and Endemol Shine Group.
Featuring five stages of music, it will include live recreations of Peaky Blinders scenes involving 200 actors, fashion shows and mens’ grooming. Confirmed artists include Primal Scream, Anna Calvi, Slaves and Nadine Shah. There will also be a BBC Introducing Stage.
Set for Digbeth, Birmingham, the series' home city, from September 14-15, The Legitimate Peaky Blinders Festival will bring together immersive theatre, live music and fashion inspired by the series, along with a cinema screening, a museum, food, drink and poetry.
Festival director and founder John Empson said: “The legitimate Peaky Blinders Festival is a brand new concept which starts in Digbeth, Birmingham, the authentic birthplace of the Peaky Blinders.
"Something totally fresh in the festival market, the show will merge cinema, live music, immersive theatre, ballet, bespoke food and drink, spoken word, pop-up performances, collaborations, exclusive previews, appearances from cast members and world class special guests. A totally 360 degree festival experience.’”
Martin Coat, the creative mind behind Boomtown, and immersive theatre specialists Dank Parish, will bring the world of Peaky Blinders to life. Contemporary dance company Rambert will perform a specially commissioned performance, choreographed for the festival by artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer.
Knight, who will take part in a live Q&A also featuring the show’s stars, said: “It is with enormous pleasure that I announce the first ever Legitimate Peaky Blinders festival, which is happening in the streets and alleys of Digbeth, Birmingham on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 of September.
It will be a festival of live music, performance, poetry, immersive theatre and experiences which will celebrate the swagger of the men and women who walked these same Digbeth streets one hundred years ago. Along with the music line up, we have the world-famous Ballet Rambert performing a specially written and choreographed Peaky Blinders ballet. There will be fashion shows, street food, pop ups and bars including a reimagined Garrison Tavern.
"We will be celebrating in Birmingham style and everyone from around the world is invited. Expect the unexpected, expect 1919 to come crashing into 2019 and, be assured, everything is officially by order of the Peaky Blinders.
"So now is absolutely the right time for this festival, which will be a unique and exciting experience for fans of the show, as well as an opportunity for those who have not yet seen the show to find out what they are missing. I am looking forward to visiting the festival and welcoming visitors from across the globe.”
Last year it was announced that the award-winning series will move from BBC Two to BBC One for its fifth series.
