✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Dance

Review: Rambert, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby ★★★★★

12 Oct 22 – 06 Nov 22, 19:30 Thu & Sat mats at 14:30. Sun 14:30 only. Mon dark. Dur.; 2 hours inc one interval

Rambert transforms the popular TV drama series Peaky Blinders into pulsating dance theatre in its brand-new show Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby

By Teresa Guerreiro on 14/10/2022

1 CW reader is interested
Rambert, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby. Photo: Johan Persson
Rambert, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby. Photo: Johan Persson
Review: Rambert, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby 4 Review: Rambert, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby Teresa Guerreiro
Part hard rock gig, part West End spectacular, Rambert’s Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is an ambitious piece of eye-filling dance theatre, that grabs the immensely popular TV drama Peaky Blinders by the scruff of the neck, gives it a good shake and makes it very much its own.


You don't have to have seen Stephen Knight’s TV series to follow Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby. The.piece, created for Rambert by Knight himself, is a sort of prequel with its own narrative coherence (dramaturg Kaite O’Reilly) and, where you need some steering, brief voice-overs by the poet Benjamin Zephaniah put you on track.


Zephaniah was, of course, born in Birmingham, where Peaky Blinders is set and where this production had its world premiere. London is seeing it at the Troubadour Theatre, Wembley Park as part of an extensive nationwide tour that will keep Rambert busy well into 2023.


The show starts in the trenches of World War I, here represented by a chasm that separates the central section of the stage from a sort of rectangular catwalk, onto which the action spills before spilling over again into the auditorium. From the trenches shell-shocked, mud-spattered, bloodied bodies emerge, among them the young Shelby men.


Zephaniah’s voice declares them dead, not because their bodies were buried, but because they’re dead inside.


That’s perhaps at the root of the ruthlessness with which they go about building their gangster empire in 1920s Birmingham, atmospherically evoked by Moi Tran's sets and Richard's Gellar's costumes. Geed up by pulsating live rock music assembled by composer Roman Gianarthur and including his own compositions alongside those of the likes of Nick Cave, Anna Calvi and Laura Mvula, the first half of the show is a high-octane hour, relentlessly following the Shelby gang as they establish their iron control of the city’s underbelly.


Sooty light (lighting design Natasha Chivers) envelops the stage where menace always lurks, the props include fairground carousel horses and fairy lights, and the plush curtains of the nightclub where Thomas (a tall, assertive Guillaume Quéau) meets Grace (Naya Lovell expressive as a hard go-getter).


Guillaume Quéau as Thomas, Naya Lovell as Grace. Photo:Johan Persson
The choreography by Rambert artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer, is vigorous, at times acrobatic, with syncopated gestures that respond to the music, its ensemble numbers making full use of a company in glorious form.


Act II comes in complete contrast. Racked by the grief of losing Grace, Thomas succumbs to opium, and drug-induced lassitude and hallucinations take over a drastically slowed-down narrative.


There is a redemptive tone to this Act, but redemption, when it finally comes, is ambiguous.


Rambert, which started as a classical ballet company over a century ago, is perhaps the most protean of Britain’s dance companies, and Peaky Blinders represents a new phase in its evolution, responding to Swan Pouffer’s mission to modernise it yet again and go for more diverse casting.


It’s a powerful show designed to dazzle and awe and most of the time it does that; what it doesn’t do, by accident or design, is speak to your heart.



by Teresa Guerreiro

What Review: Rambert, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby
Where Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, Fulton Rd, Wembley, HA9 8TS | MAP
Nearest tube Wembley Park (underground)
When 12 Oct 22 – 06 Nov 22, 19:30 Thu & Sat mats at 14:30. Sun 14:30 only. Mon dark. Dur.; 2 hours inc one interval
Price £19.50-£74.50
Website Click here to book



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 3–5 February
Things to do in London this weekend: 3–5 February
London exhibitions on now — Peter Doig, Courtauld Gallery
Top 15 exhibitions on now in London
Zadie Smith new novel, The Fraud, to be released in 2023, photo Justin Holler
An A to Z of trends for 2023
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

We recommend nearby

  • Bread Ahead Wembley
    Read more...
    Map
1

Rambert

Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby

Troubadour Wembley Park

Stephen Knight

Benoit Swan Pouffer

Guillaume Quéau

Naya Lovell

Benjamin Zephaniah

Moi tran

Richard Gellard

Roman Gianarthur

Nick Cave

Anna Calvi

Laura Mvula

You might like

  • Erina Takahashi, James Streeter, Emily Suzuki in The Rite of Spring by Mats Ek © Laurent Liotardo

    English National Ballet: Ek, Forsythe, Quagebeur Review ★★★★★

  • Forgotten Land, Nederland Dans Theater © Joris-Jan Bos

    Birmingham Royal Ballet, Into the Music review ★★★★★

  • Men in Motion, Matthew Ball in Bourne's Swan Lake.  Photo: Elliott Franks

    Ivan Putrov, Men in Motion review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×