ALT "Critical to Knight and many of us from the Birmingham area is the use of city as this global drama's stage. You see, Birmingham, unlike most other British cities, doesnt make a song or dance about itself. London, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff will celebrate themselves for as long as you can bear to pay attention. We brummies dont do that. Tge biggest boast we can generally manage about our city is that it's not quite as bad as people think it is. Don't mistake this for lack of civic pride, by the way. It's just that we find those that bang on aboit themselves rather tragic. Theres a book out right now that gets to the heart of this - _Birmingham It's Not Shit_. One of the authors, Jon Bounds, has this to say about the importance of _Peaky Blinders_ to us: "its filled a gap in the national mythology of Birmingham, and created one internationaly.

ALT We've got pur own folk tales and myths, but before _Peaky Blinders_ there were no stories told about us." "That," says Knight with a proud smile, "is nice to hear. I did think very consiously that what we don't do in Birmingham - and, in fact, in England as a whole - is mythologise our environment and be bokd about it. You know the sort of culteral cringe that often happens with the English not writing songs about Huddersfield, or Bolton, or Birmingham, whereas in America you get about virtually every big city. I wasnt embarrassed to say this is a big human drama taking place in Birmingham. "