The BBC gangster drama ‘Peaky Blinders’ – which ended after six series earlier this year – was a bona fide phenomenon, with its starry casting, swaggering cinematography and attitude to burn. It has already spawned a video game and an immersive experience – a feature film is to come. But here is Rambert, Britain’s leading contemporary dance company, offering a modern ballet take on the tale of internecine gang warfare in 1920s Birmingham. Of all the many afterlives of Thomas Shelby and his Peaky Blinders crew, this is, hands down, the most unexpected.
And yet it pretty much works. Even if you’ve never seen the show, you can appreciate the ostentatious bravado of Benoit Swan Pouffer’s production, the driving rock score, played live and loud, Richard Gellar’s twisted period costume designs and Moi Tran’s brooding set. Written by the TV series creator Steven Knight, ‘The Redemption of Thomas Shelby’ starts strongly as a kind of prequel, introducing us to chief Blinder Thomas, his brothers and his friends in the hell of the First World War trenches, where they fight their own demons as much as enemy soldiers. As the narrating Benjamin Zephaniah solemnly announces, these soldiers of the Tunnelling Brigade are ‘all dead… not counted among the dead… but dead inside’.
And so they return to the Black Country to make their mark in the criminal underworld. Each vignette brings loud, bold, energetic spectacle, with the dancers giving feisty life to each scene with full-bodied ensemble work – whether routing a cartoonishly evil factory boss, getting loose and louche in a nightclub, or piling into street battles, the brims of those famous caps flashing with razor blades. It’s a shame, though, that some of the key scenes are enacted in front of the raised stage, so most audience members will see bobbing heads, at best.
Pouffer keeps his focus on the sense of extravaganza, incorporating plenty of cinematic freeze-frame, slow-mo and moody group posing to camera/audience. It’s flashy and very appealing – but as we plough into the storyline of the TV series, specifically Tommy Shelby’s doomed love affair with Grace, it starts to feel rushed and shallow. Tommy’s descent into opium addiction is the cue for more imaginative choreography – including some astonishing Smooth Criminal-style leans performed on glass-topped tables – but a distinct dropping off in narrative drive.
Nevertheless, Guillaume Quéau is an imposing Tommy, throwing himself into the moment - especially in a heart-clutching duet with the South African dancer Musa Motha, who lost his left leg to bone cancer as a child and moves with such fierce grace that it’s impossible to take your eyes off him. And Simone Damberg-Würtz, given the daunting task of filling the shoes of Aunt Polly (Helen McCrory’s character in the TV show) brings plenty of sharp-edged steel and holds her own in a production that’s happily heaving with testosterone.