This Town, Steven Knight’s pitch-perfect and loving recreation of the early-80s music scene in Birmingham and Coventry, took home three awards from the RTS Midlands Television Awards in late November.
Jordan Bolger won the prize for Best Supporting Acting Performance and Paul Whittington was named Best Director for the BBC One drama, which was made by Kudos and Nebulastar.
Writer, Producer and Director Steven Knight, of Peaky Blinders and SAS: Rogue Heroes fame, accepts his RTS Fellowship at the 2024 RTS Patrons' Dinner.
The Fellowships were presented last night during the RTS Patrons’ Dinner held at One Great George Street.
All you need to be a writer, according to Leonard Cohen, is “arrogance and inexperience”. Quoting this from the RTS Convention stage, Steven Knight, added: “It’s so true. Arrogance, you need. Inexperience? You don’t know what you shouldn’t be doing, and it’s good to not find out.”
BBC News’s Katie Razzall asked him: “You must have learned things along the way?”
“I try not to,” he replied.
Steven Knight is a writer, executive producer and director but he’s also passionate about the creative economy and the opportunities it affords for regeneration of cities and promoting the next generation of talent.
Him and Katie Razzall discuss his personal investment in the studios in Digbeth, Birmingham, creating hits both sides of the Atlantic (Peaky Blinders, SAS Rogue Heroes) and where his next big idea is coming from.
The new BBC One drama This Town opens with the streets of Birmingham ablaze with violence during the Handsworth riots of 1981, before the action moves to council estates.
But its creator, Steven Knight, wants to make it clear that his working-class tale is not bleak or tragic, but set in a vibrant world full of energy and promise. He even manages to make tower blocks and Spaghetti Junction look beautiful.
Written, created and produced by Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight, SAS Rogue Heroes is the “mostly true” account of the unbelievable origins of the SAS, in the midst of the Second World War.
Series one saw David Stirling, played by Connor Swindells (Sex Education), seeking out the best and most reckless soldiers to push back the Nazis in a series of raids in North Africa.
The creative partnership comes after the creation of Knight (Peaky Blinders, Taboo, See) and Kudos’ BBC series SAS Rogue Heroes. The deal will give Kudos a first look at Knight’s UK based projects, and will utilise Knight’s Digbeth Loc. Studios in Birmingham, showing a firm commitment to increasing financial investment in skills and training in the West Midlands.
Ding ding! Filming is underway for A Thousand Blows, the 12-part drama set in the gritty world of 1880s illegal boxing in the East End of London.
The series centres on two protagonists, Heziah, played by Malachi Kirby (Small Axe), and Alec, played by Francis Lovehall (His Dark Materials). The pair are thrust into the underground London boxing scene after arriving from Jamaica, and quickly find themselves fighting on all fronts in a punishing world of violence and lawlessness.
Across six parts, This Town tells the story of an extended family and four young people who are drawn into the world of ska and two-tone music. The genre grew out of Coventry and Brimingham in the late 1970s and early 1980s, uniting the young people of the black, white and Asian communities.
The BBC has announced that Michelle Dockery of Downtown Abbey fame will star, alongside Nicholas Pinnock (Life) and David Dawson (The Last Kingdom).
