REVIEW | Peaky Blinders: The Rise
★★★★
Written by Callum.
Since Peaky Blinders first aired on BBC Two in 2013 it has become a worldwide phenomenon with fans from around the world making their way to London to take part in the immersive experience, The Rise. After opening in the Summer of this year, it received a mixed bag of reviews and I for one was extremely intrigued and excited to see what all the fuss was about.
Written by Katie Lyons and directed by Tom Maller, Peaky Blinders The Rise is a loud, intense, captivating and truly immersive experience which has captured the aspects of the TV show brilliantly. From the stunning set and costume design by Rebecca Brower to the incredible lighting package created and designed by Terry Cook, this whole production has been a team effort, one that has complemented each department fantastically.
Peaky Blinders: The Rise's storyline itself is quite loose which allows visitors to shape their own experience, something which I wasn’t too keen on. As groups of people were pulled away by different performers, I often questioned what I was missing out on and how that affects the storyline. I was left with a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth as although I was invited along to experience this, tickets are not cheap, and you really need to come multiple times to truly experience the full production. This did not take away from the extremely talented group of performers who live and breathe the characters for 2 hours!
Craig Hamilton had nailed Tommy Shelby with his calm, gritty, and manipulative performance. Furthermore, the charming and innocent performance from Roxana Bartle (Grace Burgess) left the audience gasping as she graced us with her presence for the first time – I have never seen anything quite like that before. I wish I could list the entire cast as they were all just perfect!
However, the standout performance for me was from Kieran Mortell, who played Arthur Shelby. The choices Kieran made were simply perfect, he shows us that Arthur’s intimidating and hard exterior is just a façade as we see him slowly deteriorate and lose himself to alcohol. This was truly outstanding, and I could not point out a single flaw in his performance. I do not want to share too much detail, but the way in which he deals with Arthur’s PTSD was superlative.
A special shout out goes out to the Fight Director, Stuart Boother. His direction was first-class, especially in the boxing scene towards the end of the performance, it genuinely looked like the performers were hitting each other – something that is not so easy to do when a couple of hundred people are surrounding you in such close proximity!
Peaky Blinders The Rise is currently booking until February 2023 (book here) and is selling fast! So dress up as if you’re in the 1920s and have one of the most enjoyable and immersive nights out in London!