Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby review: Dance show mixes rock gig energy with physical power

Rambert Dance company positions itself for a new audience with this smart, confident show created alongside Steven Knight

The cast of ‘Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby' (Johan Persson)

With a swagger, Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders has gone from an award-winning television series to an ever-expanding brand. There are plans for a film and a spinoff series, a festival, clothing brands and more. Now Rambert Dance translate the 1920s Birmingham gangsters into movement, mixing rock gig energy with urgent physical power.

Choreographed by Rambert’s director Benoit Swan Pouffer and created in collaboration with Knight, the new show is a stylised dance drama. Taking a free hand with the series, it focuses on the love story between Thomas Shelby and Grace Burgess. There are snatches of narration from Benjamin Zephaniah, but the story is told in dance, and through its fierce, stylish production.

The show starts in the trenches. The soldiers of Thomas Shelby’s tunnelling gang come boiling up out of the chasm that runs round the edge of Moi Tran’s set design. There’s a driving beat from the live band, while cellist James Douglas prowls the stage like a wary sentry.