I watched every second of all six series of Peaky Blinders and at no point did I think: "Wow. This would make a really good dance work!" I don't believe Benoit Swan Pouffer did either. What I think happened is that the artistic director of Rambert was looking for a story that would extend his dance company's reach beyond the usual narratives, chanced upon the hugely popular saga of the violent Shelby family and thought: "Aha!"
The resulting story, premiered to a hugely enthusiastic Birmingham audience, isn't bad. But never once does it feel felt or earned; it's all surface and no depth, a marketing person's fantasy, not an engaging work.
The opening promises more than it ultimately delivers. Tommy Shelby's first world war gang of tunnellers emerge on stage from down low, pulling themselves upright into a phalanx of the damaged, shoulders twitching, eyes wide. Natasha Chivers's lighting, moody and magnificent, surrounds them in swirls of yellowish smoke.
The one quality in Peaky Blinders that really does lend it to dance in the first place is the strength of its characters
Then there's a voiceover, intoned by poet and series regular Benjamin Zephaniah: "You young men of the tunnelling brigade, you are all dead ... condemned to a life without a soul." And we're off into the heavy chains and falling sparks of the industrial landscape of the Black Country, dominated by a grotesque factory foreman and women whose sharp elbows and quick marching steps demonstrate how invaluable they've been to the country while the men are gone.
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