Helen McCrory
Actress, Mum and Philanthropist

Category: Peaky Blinders

Categories Peaky Blinders Print Media Tributes

Peaky Blinders star Sophie Rundle will wear costumes meant for Helen McCrory’s Aunt Polly

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Caption: Peaky Blinders star Sophie Rundle will wear costumes meant for Helen McCrory?s Aunt Polly credit: BBC© Provided by Metro Caption: Peaky Blinders star Sophie Rundle will wear costumes meant for Helen McCrory?s Aunt Polly credit: BBC

Peaky Blinders favourite Helen McCrory will be kept alive by Ada Shelby star Sophie Rundle.

The sixth and final season of the hit BBC series finally comes back to the small screen tonight, more than two years after that epic cliffhanger aired.

However, one person whose absence will be truly felt this time around is Aunt Polly, who ruled the roost of the Shelby family in the previous five seasons.

Actress Helen McCrory, who played the formidable matriarch in the series, died last year aged 52 after a private illness with cancer.

Fans were devastated by the loss of actress and have wondered how the show would address the character’s absence.

Continue reading Peaky Blinders star Sophie Rundle will wear costumes meant for Helen McCrory’s Aunt Polly

Categories Broadcast Media Peaky Blinders Tributes

Cillian Murphy Remembers Helen McCrory on BBC Interview

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Murphy: “We’ve been through a lot together.”

By Helenistic | helen-mccrory.com | February 26, 2022

Cillian Murphy talks about Peaky Blinders and his close pal Helen McCrory in the following interview with the BBC.

Categories Broadcast Media Peaky Blinders Tributes

Famous faces reflect on working with Peaky Blinders star Helen McCrory

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Remembering Helen on BBC One Show

By Ellie Jorizzo | PA Entertainment | February 25, 2022

Welsh actor Taron Egerton and Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey have reminisced about sharing the stage with the late Helen McCrory. McCrory, who played Shelby family matriarch Polly Gray in hit BBC One show Peaky Blinders, died from cancer aged 52 last April.The final series of the show, which follows a crime gang in post-war Birmingham, launches on Sunday.Co-host of The One Show Alex Jones said that reviews have called it a “heartbreaking tribute” to McCrory. Continue reading Famous faces reflect on working with Peaky Blinders star Helen McCrory
Categories Peaky Blinders Print Media Reviews

Peaky Blinders Season 6: Helen McCrory Tribute is a Triumph

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The BBC crime drama returns in style for its sixth and final season

By Abby Robinson | Radio Times | February 22, 2022

A star rating of 5 out of 5.

In a different pair of hands with less gifted performers, Peaky Blinders could quite easily have spiralled into something clownish, eliciting a near-constant stream of ‘You’ve got to be joking me?!’ from audiences. Chances are it wouldn’t have reached a sixth season and the Peaky Blinders movie certainly wouldn’t have been given the greenlight.

But Steven Knight’s conviction in this world coupled with myriad memorable performances and gloriously cinematic direction – season 5’s Anthony Byrne has once again taken the reins on the latest instalment, making him the first director to return – fuses to create TV magic.

Categories Peaky Blinders Print Media Tributes

The Women of Peaky Blinders

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“In Birmingham, the women rule the roost.”

By BBC.co.uk | February 22, 2022

Arthur Shelby (Paul Anderson) and Ada Shelby (Sophie Rundle) are pictured at a kitchen table. She kneels in front of him looking concerned. He wears a large red coat, similar to that of Father Christmas.
Arthur Shelby (Paul Anderson) and Ada Shelby (Sophie Rundle)

When Steven Knight came to populate the world of Peaky Blinders he didn’t have to invent strong, female characters.

“Having come from a working-class background, and in Birmingham, the women run the show. It was never a question of saying, ‘I’m going to deliberately put some strong women in it…’ It was more like, ‘just look out the window,’ you know, ‘look at what really is happening.’”

During the First World War, he points out, when the men were away, “women did everything.” And so when the men came back – the jumping off point for Peaky Blinders – that wasn’t going to just stop.

“The idea that you’d have this environment where the women were completely subservient?” Knight says. “Nonsense. No, it wasn’t like that. And it isn’t like that. So it’s just a question of reflecting reality.”

Continue reading The Women of Peaky Blinders