Steven Knight's 'This Town' Trailer Offers Music as Escape from a Gritty Reality

The BBC has set a premiere date for its latest gritty, period series from award-winning writer and producer Steven Knight. Titled This Town, the drama follows the story of four young people who form a fictional rock band together. Described as both a high-octane thriller and a family saga, the series is set amid the huge social tension and political unrest of 1980s Birmingham. Against this backdrop, it tells the story of a group of young people fighting to choose their own paths in life, and each in need of the second chance that music offers.

Knight is probably best known as the creator of historical gangland drama Peaky Blinders, but he seems to have roughly half a dozen proverbial irons in the fire since the series wrapped in 2022. His World War II drama Rogue Heroes is already a hit with a second season set to arrive this year. His new espionage, and the extended family around them.  thriller The Veil will premiere in April, and period boxing drama A Thousand Blows is waiting in the wings. But this six-part series appears to be particularly special to him.

"This is a project very close to my heart," Knight said in a statement when the series was first announced. "It’s about an era I lived through and know well and it involves characters who I feel I grew up with. It’s a love letter to Birmingham and Coventry but I hope people from all over the world will relate to it.