BBC's "Peaky Blinders" - I was going to give this new series the benefit of a couple of more weeks before reviewing and summarising my reactions and thoughts but once the laughter clearly showed no signs of letting up I felt compelled to write while I can still hold my hand steady. Where everything looks like a 80’s pop video, why even the dirt looks choreographed, the puddles look staged and the scenery like something from a local theatre production of Ali Baba. The leading man is prettier than the women in it and the horses prettier than him! The men’s hairdressing appears to have been done in the one & only barber who laughably only has one style, some perverse kind of short back and back left long on top. Pudding basins all round but be sure to leave something for Cillian Murphy to flourish and flick out of those steelie blue mincers.

Speaking of pop videos the music is strangely disturbing if not distracting here and doubtless some misguided attempt at a modern twist to appeal to the younger audience by occasionally having The White Stripes interspersed with Puccini behind the more laboured attempts at drama. It’s a bit like having Red Hot Chilli Peppers do a D.H. Lawrence film soundtrack. Why even Nick Cave has been used as the theme! No attempt at historical accuracy here as indeed there doesn’t seem to be anywhere.

The chorus line . . . . . .

The décor too are mainly laughable not least for their studied grime that looks like it’s been applied with a make-up brush with a colour range from varicose vein blue to tubercular brown to consumption grey but the set is laughable too. The factory appears to do no actual work at all as the steel drums that were there last week appear to be in exactly same place. Aesthetically placed by the shooting sparks and bursts of flames that shoot with no apparent purpose but at least in time with the soundtrack. ‘Make sure the rust looks evenly painted for pities sake you lot!’ All very theatrical and I was thoroughly expecting the ensemble to burst into ‘Mack The Knife’ or ‘Whiskey Bar’ any second. Someone took their degree in set design by watching ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ and nothing wrong with that except that this is Birmingham England and the B.S.A factory not New York in the 20’s. The only thing in come appears to be both feature opium dens – ooh, how exotic!

It is the acting that beggars belief though! The accents alone are given to sliding around as if recorded weeks apart. Mind you the combination of Brummie and Irish is somewhat of a challenge. Sam Neill’s accent slides from scene to scene but is largely dreadful despite his protestations that it is based upon that of his father, the clipped vowels and broad attempt slips around like so much fish on a plate. Poor Mrs Helen-Homeland-Lewis-McCrory has to struggle to maintain the broad Brum her character requires but she is underused here in general so there would appear to have been little time for her to master it.

It would appear worth sticking with if only to see if the laughter level increases but “tough epic gangster drama” this ain’t!