Steven Knight's shows ranked – from This Town to Peaky Blinders
As This Town airs on BBC One.
Steven Knight has cashed in on an enviable number of glowing reviews and Rotten Tomatoes scores in his time as a show creator. Even though some critics initially dismissed Peaky Blinders as a gloomy British rip-off of Boardwalk Empire, there can't be many left unconverted by the conclusion of the six-season Brummie gangster epic.
He's now returned to our screens – and Birmingham – with the coming-of-age BBC drama This Town, which sees a group of council estate kids form a band against the backdrop of the social unrest of the 1980s.
While the Peaky universe is still Knight's best-known work, he has several gems nestled in what is an extensive CV – most intriguingly, he's one of the three creators of juggernaut gameshow Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
But we're sticking to his dramas here and in amongst that pool, there's something for everyone: shows redolent of the British experience and, more specifically, the Midlands one; period dramas; sci-fi thrills; wartime action; classic adaptations.
Most of them could likely be described as "ambitious" and "prestigious", but how do they stack up? And do the gang of razor-touting, shaved back and sides-sporting mobsters take the top spot?
See (Apple TV+)
On paper, the plot for See sounds slightly barmy from a creator we have come to associate with gritty, realistic drama. Starring Aquaman himself Jason Mamoa as Baba Voss, the Apple TV+ sci-fi is set in a future where humanity has lost its sense of sight – until twins who can see are born and Mamoa's fearsome warrior chief has to protect them.
Met with an understandably tepid response for its clunky ecological messaging, See is certainly not Knight's best work. But the production quality here is worthy of the silver screen and there's still plenty of Knight's signature brutal, blood-spattered scenes in what are thrilling fight set pieces.
All the Light We Cannot See (Netflix)
Based on Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer-winning novel of the same name, last year's Netflix adaptation was not considered a wholly winning adaptation of what is a beloved World War II book.
All the Light We Cannot See follows a blind French girl who delivers secret radio broadcasts in Nazi-occupied France, which are listened in on for flickers of hope by a sensitive German orphan.
Knight adapted the novel, but the end product is lacking in his telltale energy, perhaps bogged down by the sentimentality of the subject matter. It's a similar tale of woe to that of See: great cast, big streaming bucks spent, a trite and cliché-laden result.
Mark Ruffalo must be happy as Larry everyone had forgotten about this by the time it came to his Oscar nomination for Poor Things.
Great Expectations (BBC)
One thing is for sure with Knight: when he puts pen to paper, he has the cachet to sign on huge names. His adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations boasts Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham. She's fabulously evil and creepy and awful. When she's not in a scene, you wonder where she is and when she'll be back.
The main issue with this show is that nobody asked for it. Except, apparently, the BBC – there might be more Great Expectations retellings than there are pages in the book. Charles Dickens adaptations are a dime a dozen – there's even another one on this list.
Maybe Knight should just stay away from the adaptations. Except that the one coming up later is rather good.
This Town (BBC)
Knight's latest offering This Town feels like him getting back to himself – Brummie, period drama, social unrest, the IRA, the Catholic Church. It's got all the familiar elements we closely associate with him, on account of Peaky (no spoilers for where that's coming, though).
But it's also got some new elements on offer, such as the Midlands music scene. Beyond what is a banger-heavy Spotify playlist in the making with the show's soundtrack, This Town also has an array of original tracks to enjoy as we see a ska band take shape.
The band's lynchpin Dante (Levi Brown) is often annoying, but it's a large enough ensemble cast to dilute his character. Chief among them is Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery breaking bad as alcoholic songbird Estella.
Taboo (BBC)
Not his first collaboration with Tom Hardy – he was already in Peaky Blinders as Alfie Solomons – but certainly the gutsiest. Throwing every Georgian London trope into the cauldron, Taboo is a bubbling, Dickensian stew of vengeance, crime, political corruption and sex.
Hardy stars as James Delaney, a seafaring adventurer who returns home from foreign parts 12 years after the death of his father to find himself at the centre of plots and counter-plots involving the war with the States.
As the grunting, sweaty, glowering Delaney, Hardy steers just the right side of self-parody – he's not wearing a mask in this one, at least – but the tendency of the drama, co-written by Knight with Hardy and his father Chips, to over-ripeness means it's not in the SK top three.
SAS: Rogue Heroes (BBC)
If we thought the Peaky comparisons would end with Brummie-based This Town, brace yourself for SAS: Rogue Heroes. Described in one review as "Khaki Blinders", this show tracks the formation of the SAS in the Egyptian desert of 1941, with a lads' army cast in sparkling aviators.
Once again at home on the BBC – where Knight has undoubtedly done his best work – the show defies the low expectations set by what is a plainly generic name. The six zippy episodes are an action-packed romp, so the fact it has something as tedious as a colon in its title is the only mark against it.
What's more, the story being very well told is astonishing and a lot of it true.
A Christmas Carol (BBC)
More Dickens! But far superior! Guy Pearce is our embittered, younger Ebenezer Scrooge in this reimagining that justifies its existence through sheer brilliance.
The three-part Christmas cautionary tale delves into the psychology of the man who has been rendered every which way, from Robert Zemeckis' Polar Express animation, to the Flintstones, by way of the Muppets. Unlike those efforts, this is definitely not for children. And probably not for Christmas Day either, since it's a bit of a sobering take on much of the festive season.
It's a superb reimaging, which makes the 1843 setting of Dickens' novella feel like it could be a greyscale, tech-free incarnation of the wretched world we're living in today.
As we said, maybe save your rewatch for Boxing Day.
Peaky Blinders (BBC)
Ah, we had to. While Knight's subsequent efforts might come close in quality, none have approached the breadth and scale of Peaky Blinders.
Before he had the haunting cheekbones and ice blue eyes of J Robert Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy had the similarly sharp cheekbones and Brummie lilt of Tommy Shelby. Murphy was Tommy.
What to say about this show that hasn't been said? This, unlike anything else Knight has done (except Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? of course) entered the zeitgeist and so became that rare cultural artefact that will, in some way, live on beyond its screen time.
It counts among its fans Snoop Dogg, Tom Cruise and David Beckham. Becks has essentially nabbed his entire style from this show. But then, so have many people. It's among Birmingham's biggest cultural exports, giving the city and its hard-to-replicate accent an inherent swagger.
The best bit is we're getting even more of the Shelby criminal dynasty, even if it's only as a one-off film instead of a whole other season.
Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
5 reasons why Casualty's Siobhan story is a triumph
All the best Masked Singer 2026 cast theories
Wuthering Heights viral fan theory was a missed opportunity
Best romcoms to watch on BBC, Netflix and more
