Peaky Blinders creator on skinhead search

Virgin Radio

29 Jan 2023, 19:00

Credit: Rex

New BBC drama ‘This Town’ will tell the story of ska and two-tone music.

In addition to recently teasing the return of Thomas Shelby and co to the small screen, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has put out a casting call for skinheads to star in his new drama This Town.

Announced late last year, This Town “tells the story of an extended family and four young people who are drawn into the world of ska and two-tone music, which exploded from the grass roots of Coventry and Birmingham in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, uniting black, white and Asian youths”.

Levi Brown, Jordan Bolger, Ben Rose and Eve Austin will star as the four young leads. Filming began in Wolverhampton earlier this month.

Casting agency Mad Dog 2020 has since appealed (via Birmingham Live) for “skinheads and people with shaved heads… in and around West Bromwich” to become involved, but only if they “have good availability from now until the end of February”, when filming wraps.

<Looks at diary, reaches for clippers>.

When This Town was announced last year, the BBC said of the coming series: “Both a high octane thriller and a family saga, This Town opens in 1981 at a moment of huge social tensions and unrest. Against this backdrop, it tells the story of a group of young people fighting to choose their own paths in life, and each in need of the second chance that music offers.”

“This is a project very close to my heart,” said Knight. “It’s about an era I lived through and know well and it involves characters who I feel I grew up with. It’s a love letter to Birmingham and Coventry but I hope people from all over the world will relate to it.”

“Ska music has such a huge impact on music and culture; in the 80’s and through to modern day,” added Alice Webb, Mercury Studios CEO, who are in charge of the series soundtrack. “Expect fierce new music as well as serious homage to classics of the time. It’s going to be unstoppable.”

This is very exciting! Almost as exciting as the coming Peaky Blinders film!