Final six UK filmmaking teams selected for Netflix and Creative UK’s BREAKOUT programme
// Film & TV
The award-winning TV series Peaky Blinders is among productions to have made use of the High-End TV Tax Reliefs. Currently shooting season 5 on location in the English Regions, the BBC drama has become a transatlantic cult phenomenon, and it’s one of the UK’s top calling card for the British Film & TV industry’s US clients.
Economic Spend
Seasons 1-4 of Peaky Blinders filmed on location across the North West, Yorkshire, East & West Midlands. The production has used regional studio facilities, features a diverse range of locations, employed local crew and has generated millions of inward investment across the North.
Export Opportunities
Black country brewery Sadler’s Ales located in Dudley, which produces Peaky Blinders-themed ales, gin, whiskey and rum, won a distribution deal to Romania, with support from DIT. The local business seized the global opportunity by tapping into the popularity of Peaky Blinders and is now looking at building upon their success to sell more of its products in other new markets.
Business Growth & Sustainability
The Black Country Living Museum in Dudley has been used as a key filming location in every season of Peaky Blinders and is named by writers and producers as the home of the Peaky Blinders. The immediate financial income from being a film location enables the museum to diversify their income streams to become a sustainable self-reliant organisation. The national and international exposure has had an immensely positive impact on visitor numbers and themed Peaky Blinder evenings are regularly sold out in less than 24 hours.
Film Tourism Increased
Guided tours of the locations used in Peaky Blinders across Liverpool, the North West and the Midlands are hugely popular. The diverse wealth of locations available in the English Regions continue to be a magnet for inward investment production and now tourists are following in their wake. Screen tourism is a growing phenomenon, with more and more locations across the country benefitting from a booming screen industry.
Creative England’s report Quantifying Film and Television Tourism in England produced by Olsberg·SPI for us in association with VisitEngland looks at the impact of screen tourism across England outside London and shows that our filming locations are attracting domestic and overseas visitors in abundance.
Screen tourists brought between £100 million – £149 million to the economy in 2014, with the most popular locations attracting up to £1.6 million every year from international tourists.
Employment
From runners to script supervisors, location managers to 2nd assistant directors, Creative England has assisted the production to employ experienced and talented local crew on Peaky Blinders.
Locations & Filming Support
The production films extensively across Central Liverpool, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands and receives significant support from Creative England and Film Office Partners Liverpool Film Office, Film Birmingham, Screen Manchester and Bradford Film Office.
Streets in Greater Manchester and Liverpool doubled for Birmingham in many iconic scenes featured in Peaky Blinders, such as Liverpool’s Rodney Street, Great Howard Street and Dale Street, Stanley Park as well as Stanley docks which were all used by the production. Filming also took place at Manchester Town Hall, the famous Victoria Baths, and Bolton’s Le Mans Crescent was used to double for 1920s Central London.
As well as the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port doubling as Camden Town Docks, other iconic locations used included the Black Country Living Museum in the West Midlands and Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, and the beautiful Arley Hall in Cheshire was transformed into Tom Shelby’s glamorous home in the third series.
The production has also shot in and around Macclesfield, St Helens, Bakewell, Wilmslow, Irlam and Bradford.
Sign up to the Creative England database of locations, crew and facilities here.
