PEAKY BLINDERS: THE REDEMPTION OF THOMAS SHELBY

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★

“a mesmerising cacophony of movement”

Welcome to the show! No phones. No photos. And NO. F—ING. FIGHTING.

Thomas Shelby has survived the war and is free to do as he pleases. At least until he is pursued by the law, a woman and death itself. How will he fight back?

This dance iteration of Peaky Blinders is written by the series’ creator Steven Knight with direction and choreography by Rambert’s Artistic Director Benoit Swan Pouffer. The story starts in Flanders, where Thomas and his brothers face the devastation of WW1 on the front lines. Pouffer’s direction is cinematic, epic and foreboding. The sound design (Moshik Kop) simultaneously pins your body to your seat and absorbs your mind into the space. A trench cracks open and soldiers drag their bodies into the light. Spotlights direct the spectator’s gaze amongst a swarm of combatting performers. Immediately you understand that the laws of physics do not apply to Rambert’s dancers. They leap and soar as if they have never been incumbered by the burden of gravity. Featuring the soundtrack from the series (musical direction by Yaron Engler), you will certainly require your red right hand to pick your jaw up from the floor. This show is grand, sexy and gives you a craving for whiskey.

The lawless Shelby brothers have returned from the war and are known as the Peaky Blinders. They are bookmakers, money launderers and occasional protectors of their fellow man. Knight’s stage adaptation focuses on the relationship between Thomas, the Peaky Blinders’ leader, and Grace – the woman with a gun who could steal more than his secrets. Narrowing the focus of the story for the purpose of translating it to dance does come with its setbacks. For fans of the series, Thomas’ life is reduced to a romantic tragedy. For those who are encountering the story for the first time, there is an obvious lack of visibility of Thomas’ brothers as the show progresses. In both cases, this unfortunately makes it difficult for the audience to feel the full emotional depth of the events transpiring onstage.

Despite this lapse in storytelling, Knight and Pouffer have done a brilliant job of capturing the mood and aesthetic that we associate with Peaky Blinders. The first act fully immerses us in Birmingham as it is experienced by the Shelby brothers. With Moi Tran’s set designs and Richard Gellar’s costumes, the world of the TV series is reimagined for the stage. Dancers become units in a production line of a factory. Carousel horses are paraded around the ring before they are mounted and raced by jockeys. Burlesque dancers take us to a nightclub. Tran’s design of the raised stage allows Pouffer to be expansive with his direction and the dancers to move on multiple plains. The result is a mesmerising cacophony of movement, made up of duets and solos that sporadically come together to create a snapshot of the ensemble.

The first act has the tenacity of a pub brawl. The second act is the tremble of aftershock. There is a significant shift in pacing. Thomas Shelby (Conor Kerrigan) is the centrepiece of the longer dance sequences, and he is at magnificent full force. There is a satisfying similitude between Thomas’ mental state and the restlessness of his movement, but his character journey feels stagnant throughout the second act. This being said, the choreography in the second act will leave you breathless, so we’ll let it slide.

Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is a beautiful and ambitious production. The show truly captures the feeling of the TV series and will transport you to the reimagined world of Peaky Blinders. Death might be coming for Thomas Shelby, but no one can come for Rambert’s dancers – they are masters of their craft.

PEAKY BLINDERS: THE REDEMPTION OF THOMAS SHELBY

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Reviewed on 6th August 2025

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by Beatrice Livet

Last ten shows reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

SINBAD THE SAILOR | ★★★★★ | July 2025

R.O.S.E. | ★★★★★ | July 2025

QUADROPHENIA, A MOD BALLET | ★★★★★ | June 2025

INSIDE GIOVANNI’S ROOM | ★★★★★ | June 2025

ALICE | ★★★★ | May 2025

BAT OUT OF HELL THE MUSICAL | ★★★★ | May 2025

SPECKY CLARK | ★★★ | May 2025

SNOW WHITE: THE SACRIFICE | ★★★★★ | April 2025

SKATEPARK | ★★★★ | April 2025

MIDNIGHT DANCER | ★★★★ | March 2025

PEAKY BLINDERS

★★★★★

“Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision”

In its Barbican transfer, director Jordan Fein’s revelatory Fiddler on the Roof retains the elemental power that made it a five-star phenomenon in Regent’s Park. He strips the beloved 1964 musical of its nostalgic veneer to expose something more potent and contemporary: a raw and resonant meditation on tradition, displacement, and the endurance of community.

Fun, too, in case there should be a misunderstanding. Great fun.

Set in 1905 in the menaced Jewish shtetl of Anatevka before the Russian revolution, Fiddler follows Tevye, a weary but devout milkman, as his five daughters begin to choose love over arranged marriage, and the outside world encroaches upon his way of life.

Anchored by songs like Tradition, If I Were a Rich Man, and Sunrise, Sunset, it’s long been cherished for its warmth and wit. But Fein’s version – subtly but decisively restaged – asks more interesting and topical questions too: what happens when the traditions that once sustained a community begin to fracture under the weight of change? What is the true impact of displacement, of a people menaced from their homes?

Where the musical was once critiqued as “shtetl sentimentalism,” this staging leans into pared-down grit, stoic humour, and haunting lyricism. There is a modern feel to the witty script – and to the resolutely ambiguous ending.

Tom Scutt’s gorgeous design is emblematic of the approach: instead of quaint rooftops, we see cornstalks uprooted and suspended above the stage, evoking both harvest and trauma. The titular fiddler (a magnetic Raphael Papo) becomes not just a symbol but a shadowy companion, echoing Tevye’s inner world with eerie cadenzas and an eventual duet with Hannah Bristow’s Chava – whose marriage outside the faith breaks her father’s beleaguered heart.

The huge cast is potent, using impressive numbers to magnificent effect, a dream sequence appearing like a fully-realised Hollywood dance number. Meanwhile, Adam Dannheisser’s Tevye is no grandstanding showman but a wry, tired father trying – and failing – to hold his family together through reason, prayer, and rueful monologues. His comedic timing is sharp and he plays out with great relish the classic sitcom paradigm of the father and husband who declares his dominance only to have it slyly eroded by the headstrong women around him.

But it’s his gentleness that resonates most, particularly opposite Lara Pulver’s commanding Golde, whose grounded and wary pragmatism keeps the domestic scenes taut and touching.

Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision. The Bottle Dance at Tzeitel’s wedding is performed under a canopy that rises and falls. On top of that precarious canopy, and ominous, the fiddler makes clear that everything is poised on the brink of a mighty disaster. The Russians are coming.

The cast functions as a true community, especially in the spine-tingling finale as they sing Anatevka, their voices braided with longing, resilience, and bitter clarity. In a final image, the toppled milk cart, beautifully lit, appears like an oil painting. Everywhere, indeed, there is beauty and catastrophe.

One of Fein’s many achievements lies in his refusal to oversell modern parallels. The production trusts its audience to make the connections – to recognise in Anatevka’s forced dispersal the long shadow of global displacement. It neither moralises nor rants; it simply tells the story with integrity and emotional intelligence.

For all its sumptuous visual invention and musical flair, Fiddler is most powerful in its silences: a father cut off from his daughter, a community carrying candles into the dark, a fiddler playing an aching lament.

A joyous and moving triumph from beginning to end.

PEAKY BLINDERS: THE REDEMPTION OF THOMAS SHELBY

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★

“a mesmerising cacophony of movement”

PEAKY BLINDERS: THE REDEMPTION OF THOMAS SHELBY

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Reviewed on 6th August 2025

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by Beatrice Livet

Last ten shows reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

PEAKY BLINDERS

PEAKY BLINDERS

PEAKY BLINDERS

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Barbican

★★★★★

“Fein’s direction and Julia Cheng’s muscular choreography is marked by sublime precision”

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Barbican

Reviewed on 3rd June 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Marc Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

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