PEAKY BLINDERS and RIPPER STREET: A Different View

First off there seems nothing to link these BBC productions except that Ripper Street and Peaky Blinders are period pieces.
Peaky Blinders is set during 1919 in the industrial district of Birmingham known as Small Heath. The Shelby family are an organised gang of illegal bookmakers who deal with the black market and protection. A supply of guns goes missing which is an open invitation for the British Government, Communist Revoluntionaries and the I.R.A. to take an interest in.
Most of the Shelby gang former soldiers from a Pals Regiment of the First World War.

On the other side is Ripper Street - set in the wake of the Jack The Ripper murders - here Inspector Edmund Reid is put in charge of the notorious H Division with the brief to take control of Whitechapel in London's East End.

On the surface both are a touch above the average fare dished up by the Beeb. At first, with Peaky Blinders I thought of a British take on the likes of 'The Godfather' and the early part of 'Once Upon A Time In America'. That was until the final showdown......

This, in turn, made me think about Ripper Street.

The pub in Peaky Blinders looked more like a wild west saloon.
Ripper Street's Reid and his two deputies....not forgetting the brothel madam with a heart of stone.
Fortunately, I am not the only one to see the western genre influences at work.

A second series of Peaky Blinders is on the way.....but a third series of Ripper Street hangs in the balance. Public opinion demands more but since when has the BBC considered what the licence payer thinks?

Whatever no one can dispute that Ripper Street's creator Richard Warlow and Peaky Blinders' Steven Knight have found a winning formula.