Working class at 20-year disadvantage, says Steven Knight
Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has claimed that people from working-class backgrounds often start their careers “20 years behind anyone else”.
Knight, 65, said he did not gain confidence as a writer until his mid-30s after growing up with low expectations of himself, a trait he attributed to his upbringing in Birmingham, the setting of his gangland television drama.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs: “I think having that sort of working-class upbringing and background you’re 20 years, 15 years behind.
“I think you have no expectation of yourself, which is fine because you’re not putting pressure on yourself. I just wanted a job where you didn’t get wet or where you’re indoors.”
Knight said he felt like a “novelty” at university in the 1980s – “where everyone knows more than you did” – and it took him a long time to find his own feet.
He said: “I think it takes a hell of a long time to finally come to the conclusion that actually I’m good at this and actually better.
“It wasn’t until I was 35 that I thought I can actually do this. It sounds so corny. You’ve got to understand you’re as good as someone else but you just haven’t had the guidance.”
Knight started as a copywriter for radio commercials in the late 1980s before becoming a comedy writer. He then turned his hand to writing for television and films. He is best known for co-creating the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? as well as Peaky Blinders.
He claimed the success of his programme – based around urban gangsters in Birmingham in the 1920s – was because of the universality of its working-class characters.
Knight, who is also writing the script for a new Star Wars film, said working-class people were often misunderstood in television or the movies.
He said: “Most things about working-class people are like either, aren’t they hilarious, or isn’t it a shame.
“It’s not true, I think that misses the whole point – to see working class life from that perspective is so reductive.”
He said many of the Peaky Blinder stories came from stories his father told him as a child, recalling the characters they met in the scrapyards of Birmingham.
Knight said: “They were on the other side of the law, but they were really warm, and great people.
“I know that sounds like a contradiction but I wanted to get some of that respect for one’s own life into this, that these people are living big glamorous, dramatic lives, and that the emotions and passions of these people are the same as anybody else.”
Knight also recalled meeting US rapper Snoop Dogg who told him Peaky Blinders reminded him of his own entry into gang culture in Los Angeles and Detroit.
Knight’s Desert Island Discs choice included Nick Cave and The Bad Seed song Red Right Hand, which features in Peaky Blinders, as well as Bob Dylan’s I Want You and Birmingham City anthem, Keep Right On To The End of the Road, sung by Sir Harry Lauder.
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