Peaky Blinders return to Manchester as production starts on series six

Story from I Love Manchester by Louise Rhind-Tutt | 1 October 2019

The team behind hit BBC drama Peaky Blinders have set up a production base at Space Studios in Gorton. 

We’re still talking about the last series of Peaky Blinders, partly filmed in locations across Manchester, which finished just last month.

But while we’re waiting to discover the fate of Tommy Shelby and his Birmingham-based clan, the business of filming the new sixth series the globally adored and multi-award-winning drama is about to begin.

And the team behind the smash hit BBC drama will be returning to Manchester, as they’ve  just set up a production base at Gorton’s Space Studios.

The production team has already arrived and set up its production base at Space Studios, which will sit central to location filming at venues across Manchester and the North West.

Manchester locations have featured heavily in previous series of the hit drama, from Dale Street, Mangle Street, Back Piccadilly and Victoria Baths in earlier episodes to the cobbled backstreets lined with old cotton warehouses off Princess Street and Winser Street for the last series.

Other Manchester and Cheshire locations used in series five included the grand grade II listed interiors of Stockport Town Hall, Cheshire’s grand Arley Hall and Gardens, and Stockport’s Art Deco Plaza cinema, which played a series role in the season finale.

Space Studios in Gorton, the production base for series six, is a purpose built facility for large scale TV & film production with six acoustically treated stages, prop storage and production facilities.

Recent drama productions at Space Studios include Mammoth Screen’s World On Fire, which aired to great critical acclaim last Sunday on BBC One following a preview in Manchester.

World On Fire, by award-winning Manchester writer Peter Bowker (The A Word, Marvellous), follows the first year of World War II through the intertwining fates of ordinary people drawn from Britain, Poland, France, Germany and the United States as they grapple with the effect of the war on their everyday lives.

Previous success stories for the Gorton studios also include Studio Lambert’s The Feed for Amazon/Virgin Originals and Warp Film’s Little Birds for Sky One.

And Manchester has provided fertile filming ground for other recent hit dramas, including  Russell T Davies drama Years and Years and Sky One drama Brassic, starring Michelle Keegan and Joe Gilgun and filmed at locations including Ashton, Bolton and The Star and Garter.

Story from I Love Manchester by Louise Rhind-Tutt | 1 October 2019