Britain through the eyes of the wider world is a very narrow place culturally, with most media focusing mainly on London and the surrounding regions.
Other areas, traditions, and accents are rarely explored and it’s common for Brits from regional areas to be met with confusion when they travel.
Birmingham in particular has had an extremely poor time of it. While even the north of England has gotten a few bits of representation over the years, we’ve never had a Brummie accent make it big in Hollywood. That was, at least, until Peaky Blinders hit the scene.
What is Peaky Blinders?
Based loosely on real-life events, Peaky Blinders was a series that finished up last year and was met with critical acclaim across the board. The original Peaky Blinders gang dominated Birmingham around the start of the 20th Century, although this series focuses on a story set in the years following the First World War instead.
Centred around Birmingham, it’s a dramatic story about the violent underbelly of crime and politics that existed in the period between the wars, with a similar feel to classic shows like The Sopranos. It became a major hit not just in the UK but globally with North American audiences in particular getting deep into it. For many of these viewers, it was the first time they became aware that Birmingham wasn’t just a city in the state of Alabama.
What Have the Effects Been So Far?
On the part of Birmingham at least, there has been a massive tourism drive around the series. The city has never really had something to latch onto to appeal to a global audience, so now that there’s something substantial the local agencies are leaning fully into it. The Visit Birmingham page even has an entire section dedicated to Peaky Blinders attractions and visit ideas.
The city has been seeing a major increase in North American visitors, often from the US but with a healthy portion of Canadian tourists as well. Canadians in particular are using the show to uncover something of their own history, as the majority of the English settlers in Canada came from the more Northern English cities with a healthy contingent from Birmingham.
It’s probably no surprise then that Canadians, learning about where their forefathers came from, are eating up everything to do with Peaky Blinders with such enthusiasm. Even the casino game based on the show has proven a winner with them; it has matched the popularity of the show in the genre, and you can find it in the library of the majority of top-rated sites at reviewers like CasinoBonusCA, not only as a regular game but as a top-ranked title in many of them. If you wish to try your luck, the site provides all the necessary information you need, such as playing guides, bonuses, gambling legality, and security info.
What About the Image of the City?
One of the largest worries was that the show’s more unsavoury elements may reflect poorly on the modern city, despite the events being from 100 years ago. For a comparable situation, we have to look at the impact of The Italian Job on London as, despite having a more comedic tone, it covered a lot of the same topics. In this case, public awareness of the local culture has far outlasted the negative connections it has.
For Birmingham, the approach seems to be to add education and focus on the positive elements of the show. As a great example, the live-action play running at the Birmingham Hippodrome features all the same gritty and visceral elements as the TV show but the marketing and promotions play up the artistic and dramatic merit far more than the criminal elements.
The city as a whole has long pushed for recognition of a growing cultural scene to shake off a long-seated reputation, and indications so far are that Peaky Blinders as a phenomenon has jumpstarted public awareness entirely. There will almost certainly be casual tourists who still come away with the impression of Birmingham portrayed in the show, but local leaders are banking on them being the minority.
With the final series now only recently ended and a spin-off movie now in the works, we can expect to see the impact of the show continue for quite some time. It has made a lasting impression in the minds of viewers around the world, and if Game of Thrones is anything to go by, it’ll be a while before it dies off.
