COVENTRY’S 2-Tone music scene is the inspiration behind a new drama in development by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.
Emerging in the UK throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, the movement fused Jamaican ska with punk rock and new wave, and saw the rise of acts including homegrown talent of The Specials and The Selecter, as well as Birmingham’s The Beat.
The series if commissioned is said to be produced by Kudos, who released Tin Star and The Tunnel, in association with Kudos North, and Matthew James Wilkinson and Nick Angel who produced the film Yesterday.
According to online entertainment news site Deadline, the series will “use the music of Two Tone as its heartbeat to tell the story of how the scene exploded out of Coventry and Birmingham helping to unify black, white and Asian youth groups amid racism and political injustice.”
Describing the project, screenwriter and film director Knight said: “This will be a project very close to my heart, since this is home territory geographically and personally. I grew up with this music and the people who loved it. It was a soundtrack that perfectly fitted the mood of the times, on the streets, in clubs and on the football terraces. Birmingham and Coventry were the places where Two Tone was born and we will chart its progress through the important years. The production team we are putting together will perfectly reflect the make up of the people who made Two Tone happen.”
And if it goes ahead, it would be one of the first dramas to be shot at Knight’s new 38-acre Mercian TV & Film studio complex set within a new “residential, retail and food and drink neighbourhood” in Digbeth, close to the soon-to-be-built HS2 stop and 40 minutes to London.
Karen Wilson, Co MD of Kudos said: “This is a remarkable period of cultural history deeply rooted in the West Midlands, so with Steven’s passion for the area and his brilliant writing this will be a fascinating story of progression and unity set against a backdrop of racial tension and economic demise.”
Reacting to the news Pete Chambers, Coventry Observer’s Music Matters columnist, historian and co founder of The Coventry Music Museum, said: “It’s a constant source of inspiration to see that 2-Tone remains on trend after 41 years.”
