The sixth and final season of Peaky Blinders will feature original music from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood.
The Birmingham-set gangster drama, starring Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby, will return this Sunday (27 February).
Peaky Blinders director Anthony Byrne said he is “over the moon” that Radiohead’s frontman and guitarist have worked on the music.
He told NME: “The music has always been really important historically, and I was really keen to bring a dramatic score into it. We’re using that much more in this season. It’s a much heavier season so the score is taking things in a very different direction.
“It’s always about Tommy and his headspace. That’s what I keep going back to.”
Previous seasons of the series have included music from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (the theme tune is their track “Red Right Hand”), Arctic Monkeys, David Bowie, PJ Harvey, Iggy Pop, Royal Blood, Laura Marling, IDLES, Savages, and Foals.
Byrne said that songs by Patti Smith, Joy Division and Sinead O’Connor will also feature in the new episodes.
“Sinead O’Connor was a big one for me because she’s so f***ing talented,” he said.
“It feels like she’s not part of a conversation at the moment, and she’s got such a body of work that’s amazing. She’s so Peaky but for whatever reason she just slipped through. If you’ve got [show creator] Steven Knight in watching it and he’s in tears, then you know you’ve done the right thing.”
He added: “Also Patti Smith is another one. She hasn’t been in Peaky [before], but she should be. It felt so natural for her to be there. That was a big get for us.”
Anna Calvi also returns to write the score for season six, after having worked on series five.
The show’s lead star Murphy recently said season six is a “tribute” to his late co-star Helen McCrory.
The actor, who played Aunt Polly in the BBC drama, died of breast cancer last April aged 52.
Although filming on the sixth and final series of Peaky Blinders began in January 2021 prior to her death, McCrory did not feature on the show due to her illness.
