A recent comment from the show’s creator is extremely interesting.
As always, if you haven’t seen the most recent season of Peaky Blinders, consider this to be your spoiler alert warning.
With Season 6 being rumoured to start filming in March, Dubliner Anthony Byrne has a lot of loose ends to tie up as he returns to direct the next episodes.
Of course, Season 5 ended on a more sombre cliffhanger as Tommy Shelby was forced to come to terms with the PTSD, metal anxieties, and pressures that he has faced since returning from WWI.
While it’s highly unlikely that the leader of the Peaky Blinders pulled the trigger and died by suicide, Tommy does face another more sinister and expansive threat, the rise of fascism.
Throughout Season 5, the character of Oswald Mosley epitomised the burgeoning evils of fascism and despite Tommy’s best intentions to spy on Mosley and bring the movement down from the inside, things didn’t go according to plan.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, the show’s creator, Steven Knight, confirmed that the character of Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin) will be returning for Season 6 and that the producers are currently looking to cast an actor for the role of Diana Mitford, Mosley’s second wife.
On this note, there’s a real life detail here that’s very interesting.
When Mitford married Mosley in 1936, their marriage took place at the home of Joseph Goebbels in Berlin. Adolf Hitler was the guest of honour.
Ok, while Peaky Blinders is grounded in some semblance of history and real life events, it does take factual liberties. However, during a recent Reddit AMA, Knight and Cillian Murphy were asked if the show would feature any more famous historical figures.
Knight replied by saying: “In Series 6, there will be a figure from history who may surprise people.”
Granted, given the time period that the show is set in, this famous historical figure could be anyone but there are genuine real life connections between Mosley and Hitler that can’t be ignored.
Also, Tommy’s failure to assassinate Mosley now means that he has to become a more ‘reluctant ally’ with the leader of the leader of the British Union of Fascists.
Knight has consistently said that he plans on ending the show when WWII is declared and the first air sirens are heard (1939). The wedding between Mosley and Mitford took place in 1936.
By this logic, it’s entirely possible that Tommy Shelby could cross paths with the personification of pure evil, Adolf Hitler, at Mosley’s wedding.
We shall wait and see.
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