Steven Knight

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is the writer Stephen Knight. He's best known as the creator of the hugely successful TV drama Peaky Blinders, a global hit which ran for six series, winning a shelf full of awards and inspiring fans from Small Heath to Hollywood. He grew up in Birmingham, the youngest of seven siblings, and says his main aim back then was to secure a job that didn't involve getting rained on. He's kept himself dry with a surprisingly wide range of film and TV credits. He co-created the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Dirty Pretty Things. But it was his decision to sit down and develop the stories his father told him about his own 1920s childhood that spawned his greatest hit. And now he's a studio mogul. This year he opened Digbeth Lock, a huge complex in central Birmingham where the first Piggy Blinders film will be shot later this year. He says, Being a writer is like being a radio. Whatever signal you pick up, you just have to broadcast it. It's not always what you want to write, it's just there. You just start writing and you never know what's going to happen. Stephen Knight, welcome to Desert Islanders.

Steven Knight1:49

It's an absolute pleasure and an honor to be here.

Presenter1:51

Well, we're thrilled to have you and great for you to be back in a radio studio because that's where it started for you.

Steven Knight1:57

Yeah. First things I was writing was uh local radio commercials in Birmingham. Handwritten. Uh they had to be exactly thirty seconds long. You'd write them, pick up the phone, phone the client and read it out to the client with sound effects.

Steven Knight2:09

Over the phone and they'd either say yeah or they'd say no and then you probably that afternoon you'd record about ten of them.

Presenter2:10

Over the far

Presenter2:15

Well, I'm chuffed to bits that you can do your own sound effects today. It saves me a job adding them in later. And that just shows the range and pace of your work, Stephens, are absolutely phenomenal. Are you someone who finds it quite difficult to switch off?

Steven Knight2:18

Did you guys

Steven Knight2:27

Yeah, it's it's not even I don't feel as as if it's switching off, it's like um switching over to something else. In other words, I find it relaxing to write and the discipline is to stop, usually.

Presenter2:38

How long can you kind of keep hold of something that's sparked your imagination? Are you kind of picking up ideas and kind of putting them in your back pocket?

Steven Knight2:45

It's usually dialogue that starts things. So the best ones are when you're walking down the street and someone's talking on their mobile phone and they'll say a line that's from heaven. It's just the most amazing line. It's that that sparks something for me and I think that the way people actually speak

Steven Knight3:02

Often they're saying the opposite to what they mean, or they're revealing things about themselves that they don't know they're revealing. And for me, that's what it is to be a writer: to listen. And sometimes you don't even know you've remembered it, but it's there somewhere. I mean, my theory that I've come up with is that everybody dreams. You know, you fall asleep, and some part of your brain takes the things that have happened and people you know and other events, puts them all together, and does this weird story. But the characters are spot-on. They never come in with a bit of implausible dialogue. So, some part of your brain is able to do that. And I've tried, where possible, to turn everything else off and just let it go.

Presenter3:36

What does a good day's writing look like for you then? When do you like to start? Where do you like to write?

Steven Knight3:40

Early start always. For me, that's the best time when just as you are becoming awake. So it's probably where there's still a bit of echo of.

Steven Knight3:48

Whatever the dreamland is, yeah. And then start writing. I try to end the day before knowing what I'm gonna do next rather than stopping when I've stuck.

Presenter3:48

Whatever the direct

Presenter3:58

Okay, so you give yourself a little hook almost.

Steven Knight3:58

So you give you

Steven Knight4:00

Exactly. So you get yourself into it by with something you know you're going to do and then just let it happen and then run out of petrol probably about two o'clock.

Presenter4:09

What have you got for us first, Stephen? Disc number one.

Steven Knight4:11

This is Bob Dylan singing I Want You and I grew up in a house that didn't have many books in it but I did have older brothers who were starting to bring in very different sorts of music which my dad didn't approve of and one of them was bringing in Bob Dylan and for me that was an introduction to the power of words not just music but words because it's all about the imagery and poetry.

Presenter4:33

And why have you chosen this track in particular?

Steven Knight4:35

I think this is a great example of relatively early Bob Dylan where I think he says himself now that he doesn't know where it came from, that he would just sit down and it would come really quickly and suddenly and this was one of those songs where if you listen to the lyrics they are like a dream and that's what for me was the thing that made me think maybe I could do that, not sing but write.

Speaker 44:57

Guilty undertaker sighs The lonesome organ brand of cries The silver saxophones say I should refuse you

Speaker 45:06

The cracked bells and washed out horns Blow into my face with scorn But it's not that way, I wasn't born To lose you

Speaker 45:15

I want you.

Speaker 45:18

I want you.

Speaker 45:20

I want you so bad.

Presenter5:26

Bob Dylan, and I want you. So, Stephen, you're the youngest of seven kids, five boys and two girls, born in nineteen fifty nine and brought up in Birmingham. That's quite houseful. How did you all get along?

Steven Knight5:38

It's a case of having to when it's like that. And I think you develop social skills at the age of about three involving cutlery and food and moving around a small space'cause it wasn't a huge house, there were

Presenter5:48

If it wasn't that he

Steven Knight5:50

Originally, five boys in one bedroom, two girls in the other, and mum and dad in the other.

Presenter5:54

Oh wow, okay. So what was the bed configuration? Was it um

Steven Knight5:57

Uh double bed with three of us and a bunk bed with two of us.

Presenter5:59

So were you top to toe and all that?

Steven Knight6:01

Sometimes, yeah.

Steven Knight6:03

All our uncles and aunties also had lots of kids, so there would be lots of parties where there would be just a massive house full of kids and cigarette smoke swirling around. Telling stories and singing songs, that was a thing. I mean music was such an important thing. We used to all go on holiday together, so it was great.

Presenter6:16

Um

Presenter6:21

I love that. So Peaky Blinders is obviously a kind of heightened version of a very different era, but it is one that's intimately connected to your own family, especially your dad, George. So tell me a bit about him. How would you describe him?

Steven Knight6:34

He was a farrier, a blackbird. So that's that shoe. Shoeing horses, yeah. I mean, he was a horse person. And he died when I was quite young. He was born in Small Heath, so was my mum. And he told me lots of stories about the old days, and Peaky Blinders came from that. But his working life began when he was working at the co-op bakery shoeing horses. There's like a production line of horses and shoeing and hard work and fire and forges. just a very evocative period. And then when the horses ran out, they moved out to the country to a blacksmith shop. And we were a family with lots of connections through my dad to lots of Romani people. When they were living in the small village, there was a camp nearby. And those people who were living there were the only reason that we survived as a family because they used to pay in cash.

Presenter6:36

So that's that shoe.

Presenter7:19

So that was the community, the wider community around him.

Steven Knight7:20

Why can we

Steven Knight7:22

And then we found out later that some of the people that we were visiting at Scrap Metal Yards were our great uncle. It was a completely different world. And I used it in Peaky where I remember going to Charlie Strong's scrapyard in Birmingham. And I said to him, Is this stuff stolen? And my dad said, no. Charlie finds things just before they're lost.

Presenter7:46

Okay, understood. What about your mum Ida? So I know that when she was very small, she was something called a Bucky's Runner.

Steven Knight7:53

Yeah.

Presenter7:53

What did that involve?

Steven Knight7:54

Well, she at the age of eight or nine was employed by the local bookie Tucker Wright along with a lot of other kids and what they would do is walk down Little Green Lane with a basket of washing and because betting was illegal the gamblers would walk in the other direction with a piece of paper with their code name, the name of the horse they're betting on, the odds and the money they were betting, so sixpence. And as mum walked past they'd drop it in and she'd arrive at Tucker Wright's where there was a dog on a chain that was just short enough not to be able to let the dog bite the kids. So she'd edge her way round this alsation and take the basket of washing in, give it to Tucker Wright and Tucker Wright would give her sixpence.

Presenter8:32

And why was she doing that at such a young age? Why did they use kids?

Steven Knight8:35

Because they couldn't get arrested.

Steven Knight8:37

Because there were police around. The police used to disc they couldn't mom, they used to disguise themselves as bakers and milkmen and things. And if any they saw anybody taking bets

Presenter8:45

So they'd be dressed up as a milkman or a drinker?

Steven Knight8:47

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a whole cat and mouse game, but if you use kids, they couldn't arrest them. But my dad's uncles were the bookmakers and they were the people known at the time as Peaky Blind.

Presenter8:57

Okay. Tell me a little bit more about your mum. So she had seven of you to look after in in quite a small house as you described. That must have been hard work at times. What was she like? What kind of mum was she?

Steven Knight9:04

And that was a

Steven Knight9:07

She was brilliant and she used to feed us on sort of an industrial scale. So we had, you know, fish and chips on Thursday and we had smoked fish on Mondays and dad would bring in this food that nobody else would eat apart from the meal, like pigs, trotters, and chitlins and things. It was a very, very sort of throwback world, actually, that we were living in. But my mum.

Steven Knight9:30

I don't know how she did it. She was a cleaner during the day and then she would do early evening shift in the factory, doing soldering, and she was also looking after us and also taking in the family's washing from the family she was cleaning for.

Presenter9:42

And what kind of temperament did she have?

Steven Knight9:44

She was great. I mean she was it was everything was a laugh. I'll give you an example of her thought processes. We lived on a state where the council didn't grit the roads for some reason. So when it snowed, which it did'cause it was quite high up, it was impassable. And so my mum got her shoes and super glued grit to the soles of her shoes.

Presenter10:05

The best sheeps.

Presenter10:07

There's a certain kind of determination, Stephen, that is that's resonating through the decades. It's all coming together for me now.

Steven Knight10:08

Just kidding.

Steven Knight10:10

Yeah.

Speaker 410:12

Uh

Steven Knight10:12

All coming together for

Presenter10:13

She sounds absolutely amazing. And you said that songs were important, that music was an important part of family life. So, would you sing together? Would you listen to music together? What kind of thing?

Steven Knight10:22

When our family or extended family with the uncles and aunties ever arrived at a pub or a working men's club, if there was an open mic, that was it. Every uncle and auntie had their own song.

Presenter10:33

That's a bit of a thing, isn't it? I remember that in my family, that everyone had to do a party piece. And as a child, you might be placed on a low table and expected to do a turn. Was that the same?

Steven Knight10:34

Remember that?

Steven Knight10:36

Yeah.

Steven Knight10:37

And as a ch

Steven Knight10:39

That's right.

Steven Knight10:41

That's exactly the same. And everybody had their own song. They all did their own song. Then, obviously, people would do other songs.

Presenter10:48

Did you have one? What was it?

Steven Knight10:49

No, I didn't. I remember to my embarrassment that

Steven Knight10:53

We were in a working men's club somewhere and my dad said he went to the bar and he's buying a drink and he suddenly heard this really deep brumming voice going, Umpty Dumpty sat on no more And he's going to like it's one of his own Who the hell is that? I said, That's your Steve.

Steven Knight11:11

And I've been put up there and say, go on, do um do um imagine what the ordinary drinker was thinking at this point.

Presenter11:17

Well, listen, on that note, I think we'd better have some more music, Steven Knight. What's it going to be? Disc number two?

Steven Knight11:22

This is the song that my mum used to sing. She had a fantastic voice actually and sang it with great passion. And it was her song all through her life. So whenever I hear it I think of her. It's um Ella Fitzgerald singing Summertime.

Speaker 411:35

Autumn Summertime

Speaker 411:43

And the living is easy.

Speaker 411:51

Fish your jump leaf

Speaker 411:58

And the curtain is high.

Presenter12:06

Ala FitzGerald singing Summertime from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

Presenter12:11

What about at school? Were there any signs that you would go on to have a creative career back then?

Steven Knight12:16

When I was about I suppose, I think I was about ten.

Steven Knight12:20

And started to write poetry. And I don't know why I did, but and there was one teacher called Miss Lester.

Steven Knight12:27

at Blackwood Road Juniors and she told me that I was good at it and it was really odd because I just thought therefore officially I am good at it.

Presenter12:36

Yeah.

Steven Knight12:37

Yeah, it's not like an opinion. It's like someone has found out that I am good at this. So I thought, well, that's what I'll do then, really early.

Presenter12:43

And that was it. You decided about it.

Steven Knight12:44

I pretty much decided that that's what I wanted to do because I thought, well, I'm good at it, so I'll do it. And then it was quite a bit later that I started trying to write stuff, but there weren't a lot of books and there weren't a lot of templates to look at until an older brother started bringing books in from second-hand bookshops. I think he bought them by the pound. So he bought them by weight. Yeah. I remember when I was little seeing the Iliad, Homer, and I didn't know what any of these things were, but there were some classics there, as well as really weird detective novels and all sorts of very interesting collection.

Presenter13:15

You had your own passions and interests though, particularly Westerns. You know, lots of kids growing up in the sixties loved Westerns, but your interest in them went quite a lot further than other people. You used to send money via the Western Union to the Museum of the American Indian in New York and actually buy materials?

Steven Knight13:18

Yeah.

Steven Knight13:31

My mum was relatively worried because it was just the strangest thing. I became obsessed with Native Americans and I don't know why. Maybe it was being around horses and being around gypsies and seeing some sort of parallel with the American Indians I saw on TV. So at a really early age, about nine I think or ten, I started going to the Birmingham Museum, looking at stuff, trying to get books about it. Then, as you say, I used to take coins, get the births, take coins into the Western Union in central Birmingham and send them to the Museum of the American Indian.

Speaker 214:00

Yeah.

Presenter14:00

Mm-hmm.

Steven Knight14:04

requesting specific books that had been printed in eighteen eighty nine.

Presenter14:08

And did they arrive? Did you get them? Yeah.

Steven Knight14:09

Yeah, about four months later, because it was all seamail. They sort of have a little green sticker on the envelope that said C-mail.

Presenter14:15

Oh, that must have just seemed magical.

Steven Knight14:16

And then the magic just became Harry Potter esque when

Steven Knight14:20

I read in a book that there was a school built in 1888 called Little Rock School and it was on Standing Rock Reservation for Native American kids. And I wrote a letter that said, I'm very interested in American Indians and I'd love to have some pen friends. I was 12 at the time and posted it and about four months later this thick envelope arrived with letters from about 15 kids my age in the school which still existed by some miracle. talking about their lives. They sent me some stuff. They sent me like a bracelet thing that they'd made. You know, imagine if you read a lot of Harry Potter.

Presenter14:57

Like getting getting a letter back from everyone in Gryffindor.

Steven Knight14:59

Exactly, amazing.

Presenter15:00

Amazing.

Steven Knight15:01

It's real, this is real.

Presenter15:02

Right.

Steven Knight15:02

And I've still got the the bracelet that they sent.

Presenter15:04

Did you keep writing to each other?

Steven Knight15:06

Yeah, one of them until I was about twenty one. There was a fork in the road where I carried on with education and a lot of those people didn't and it was quite sad.

Presenter15:11

Yeah.

Presenter15:15

Let's take a minute for some music though. I'm dying to hear disc number three from you, please, Stephen Knights. What have you got?

Steven Knight15:20

And this is a hymn, Immortal Invisible. I'm not religious in any way, but.

Steven Knight15:25

Whenever I'm writing anything and it's set in a church and there's a hymn being sung, I always say Immortal, Invisible. And they never do it for some reason. They always do a different one. But.

Presenter15:33

Why do you always say this one?

Steven Knight15:34

Because I love it so much. And it reminds me of autumn mornings at the school I went to, where we used to have assembly, boys on one side, girls on the other.

Steven Knight15:44

We'd all say the Lord's Prayer, and then there would be a hymn. And they were all beautiful. The tunes were lovely.

Steven Knight15:51

Every time I hear a hymn, it just takes me back to that sort of slightly damp big hall in this school where everybody's reluctantly singing this song, but somehow it's beautiful.

Speaker 416:05

God only wise, be mighty that says Him from our eyes.

Speaker 416:15

Most blessed, most glorious, the ancient of gifts, Almighty, victorious thy great name.

Presenter16:31

Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise sung by the Worcester Cathedral Choir.

Presenter16:36

Stephen Knight, you mentioned that y you were quite young when your dad died. I think it was before you left home to go to university. And you were the youngest, obviously, so that must that must have been really tough, especially as you were going away.

Steven Knight16:42

Best.

Steven Knight16:48

Yeah, it was only a matter of months afterwards and it there was a sort of brief debate about whether I should stay and get a job actually to help be but um

Presenter16:55

I'm actually

Steven Knight16:59

I d I did go away. I I was completely blase about it as well.

Presenter17:03

About going away.

Steven Knight17:04

About go about going to university. I thought I was so smart, you know, and and

Presenter17:08

Uh

Steven Knight17:09

The arrogance of youth, and it was like, Well, what I'll do, I'll go down to London because I've been offered a place. I'd applied to five universities in London because basically I just wanted to move to London. And I thought, I'll go down there, I'll do a term, get a job, and then carry on. I didn't have any ambition. When I first got there, the cleaners, I was talking to the cleaners in the hall of residence where I was, and I said about my mum and all that, my dad had just died, and they sort of adopted me.

Presenter17:32

I saw the

Presenter17:34

Wow, that's how you I mean you must have been at sixes and sevens yourself. I mean do you remember how you felt? Yeah.

Steven Knight17:39

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was, and you know, I watched it happen, which is really traumatic to actually.

Presenter17:44

So he was a mile.

Steven Knight17:45

To witness it, yeah. So again, that's the thing that comes into your life consciously and in your dreams especially, you know, you see the things. So it was very traumatic, but you've got this big engine room, which is the family.

Presenter17:52

Ina is

Speaker 418:01

I had

Steven Knight18:01

You've got all the others, you know, and you've got your brothers. They're all going through the same thing. And one of my brothers was already in London, so that was really helpful that that was there. I actually moved to the Hall of Residence with one of my mates.

Speaker 418:02

You got your

Presenter18:12

Didn't you go really early? You hitchhiked down there and got there. How early?

Steven Knight18:15

How old he probably about.

Steven Knight18:18

Two weeks ten days early.

Presenter18:19

Why was that?

Steven Knight18:20

Because I just wanted to move to London. So me and my mate Graham Craddock, we hitchhiked and we got a lift in a Guinness lorry to London. And I was sharing the room.

Presenter18:29

Were there lots of students arriving off the back of Guinness Lauries or just you?

Steven Knight18:32

Exactly.

Steven Knight18:33

But nobody else was in the hall of residence at the time, except for me. They let me in, and me and Graham.

Steven Knight18:38

lived there before everybody else arrived and he got a job at Harrod's in the fur department, in the freezer where the fur department is. I mean, he didn't take it for very long, he didn't like it, but yeah, it was a very unusual way to move to university.

Presenter18:51

And were you already writing at that stage?

Steven Knight18:54

Not really, no. I didn't really start until after I finished university. But I mean I was having to write essays and things, which was a bit of a chore. The thing that I when I look back is I think having that sort of working class upbringing and background, you're twenty years, fifteen years behind.

Presenter19:01

Uh

Presenter19:13

Tell me more about that.

Steven Knight19:14

Well, I think that you you have no expectation of yourself, which is fine. You know, you're not putting pressure on yourself. But as you said at the beginning, I just wanted a job where you didn't get wet or a job where you're indoors. So you start off with that and to begin with, because everyone else has, especially if you go to university, everyone else has had a different experience and knows more than you do.

Presenter19:36

Especially then. Back then it would have been you would have been quite unusual, I'm imagining.

Steven Knight19:37

And it would

Steven Knight19:40

Yeah, well, and you were a not a celebrity, but you were a bit of a novelty, let's say.

Presenter19:44

Mm.

Steven Knight19:45

And everybody seems to know stuff, and you assume they know stuff'cause they're smarter. You don't realize they know stuff'cause they just happen to have come across it earlier. And I think it takes a hell of a long time to finally come to the conclusion that actually I'm good at this and actually better.

Presenter20:01

When did that happen for you?

Steven Knight20:02

probably thirty-five or something when I started to think, well, I can actually do this.

Presenter20:04

I must.

Steven Knight20:06

If ever I do any talks anyway with anybody I've I was just at my old school, just it sounds so corny, but you know, you've got to understand that you can you you are as good as someone else, it's just you haven't had the same guidance.

Presenter20:18

Tell me about taking your first steps into writing for a living then, because you know, the course was one thing, but then after that you've got to find your way, make your way in this whole new landscape that, you know, is equally new to you. You got your first gig, uh, it was in Birmingham, so back in Birmingham.

Steven Knight20:34

Back into

Presenter20:35

Writing and making radio commercials. So this is pre-internet, obviously. What did the job actually entail?

Steven Knight20:37

Also

Steven Knight20:41

Your brief would be it's a clothes shop, it's a butcher's shop, it's a pub, it's a restaurant. And you know, the brief would just be sell this place. And then you would write it longhand, read it down the phone to the client, to the owner of the shop or the warehouse or whatever it was. And they would approve it. You'd get the voiceover would arrive at Park on the Drive about two o'clock in the afternoon. What we got here, you give him your handwritten things. You've probably got six or seven. The thing was, you have to get all that information in to 30 seconds. So you learn techniques for being brief. And then the voiceover, you know, they didn't want to mess about. They didn't want to start doing this thing and it's 32 seconds long. Got to do it again. You've got to speed it up. You don't want to have them speeding it up so much. So you sort of learn what 30 seconds feels like. And it's a great discipline because it's 10 times a day. And it was absolutely disparate. So you'd get this wine bar that fancied itself in Cheltenham and you'd have to do all this cool stuff.

Speaker 421:12

No.

Speaker 221:12

So

Steven Knight21:41

Then get the core voice over and put the music on it. And I used to sing.

Presenter21:44

Would it be the same guy you would sing?

Steven Knight21:46

I'd sing jingles, yeah. There was me and the other person who was the other writer. We used to go, and she had a good voice, I was not bad.

Presenter21:52

You said that you used to do your own sound effects back in the day. I'm going to need an example.

Steven Knight21:56

Yeah, I was gonna

Steven Knight21:58

Well, we used to d used to sing the jingles and then it was actually a telead which was unusual and it had a bee buzzing around. I think it was a tin of paint.

Steven Knight22:07

and I did the buzzing of the bee, and my nan, who was pretty much deaf, was watching the telly with some of my cousins, and the ad came on. She didn't know anything about it. She heard the buzzing and she said, That's our Steve.

Steven Knight22:24

But how did she know? Because the others didn't know either. You know, it wasn't like somebody had tipped her off. Nana knows your buzz and she knew it. She knew my buzz.

Presenter22:28

Nana Dozioba's ingenuous.

Presenter22:35

That's love.

Steven Knight22:36

Yeah.

Presenter22:40

Stephen, I think we better go to the music. Disc number four. What are we going to hear next?

Steven Knight22:44

Reflecting the introduction of politics into one's life, this is one of my favourite songs of all time, so finding an excuse is not difficult. But this was just of the time, of the 70s, early 80s, when politics was an integral part of a young person's life, which maybe it isn't anymore. But this is just a beautiful song.

Speaker 423:08

We forward in this generation

Speaker 423:14

Triumphantly

Speaker 423:17

Won't you hear Jessing?

Speaker 423:22

The Sons of Freedom.

Speaker 423:25

That's all I ever have.

Steven Knight23:26

Alright

Speaker 423:30

Redemption songs.

Speaker 423:35

Redeem Sean Song

Presenter23:38

Bob Marley and the Whalers, Redemption Song.

Presenter23:43

So Stephen, you were soon hitchhiking back to London because you got a job at Capital Radio and that led to you working at the production company Cellador.

Speaker 423:51

Yeah.

Presenter23:51

This is the late eighties by now, and you started writing material for people like Ken Dodd, Frankie Howard, Ruby Wax, Jasper Carrot. I mean, what a roll call, a phenomenal cast list of comics there. What was it like working with them?

Steven Knight23:57

Uh

Speaker 423:57

Did you wait?

Speaker 423:58

Uh

Steven Knight23:58

Yeah.

Steven Knight23:59

Yeah.

Steven Knight24:05

It was amazing, especially the old school comedians,'cause it was a era of the new wave stand ups, and I was completely in the a different world of Ken Dodd and Frankie Howard had been stand up comics since before the Second World War.

Presenter24:10

Theme

Presenter24:18

So, obviously, like you say, alternative comedy is in full swing by this point, but they would still have been playing big venues, huge names.

Steven Knight24:21

But they would

Steven Knight24:24

Oh, huge. I mean, I was writing with someone called Mike Weisille, who was my writing partner at the time. And we'd got a message that Ken Dodd wanted some new material. Now, if you know who he is, that's like, you know, he's a statue, he's an icon, he's incredible. And he did four-hour shows and wouldn't let people leave. He was just brilliant. And so we went to see him in the backstage at the Palladium, which was one of the horriblest places you could ever see. It was really run down and neglected. And when we got in there, Ken Dodd was there with his shirt off, having a wash. And we were sitting in the room, sort of separated from where he was. And he was calling that. So what have you got? You know, have you got any material? And we said, yeah, yeah, you know, we'd love to write some stuff for you. And he had a little terrier dog. And as we're talking, his terrier dog came up to my mate's leg and started humping it.

Speaker 424:36

Oh yeah.

Speaker 224:36

I didn't

Steven Knight25:12

Yeah.

Presenter25:12

Yeah

Steven Knight25:14

Yeah, yeah. He's watching his um his girlfriend's asleep in another room.

Steven Knight25:19

Showbiz. Exactly that. The new wave stuff was brilliant, of course, but these.

Presenter25:19

Shopus

Presenter25:22

Cool.

Speaker 225:22

What's

Steven Knight25:24

Legends had been doing this for like forty years and they had the same act and the same lines and they were so good and so surreal. Ken Dodd's line, What a lovely day for pushing a cucumber through the Vickers letterbox and shouting The Martians are coming.

Presenter25:42

It's a vivid image, isn't it?

Steven Knight25:43

Yeah.

Presenter25:46

But what about writing for a bromie? Because you know, Jasper Carrot, who you wrote for a lot for many years, you co wrote The Detectives for him, which was a huge hit. It must have been really fun to write for someone whose accent, whose language, whose world you understood so intimately.

Steven Knight25:48

You know, just

Steven Knight25:50

Many y

Steven Knight25:58

Choose

Steven Knight26:00

Yeah, fellow Birmingham City supporter, which is why we ended up working together actually, because that's the thing that connected us.

Steven Knight26:07

You know, the Brummie way of delivery, the Brummie sense of humour is obviously dear to my heart. And he, for me, was an absolute hero for all people of my generation. He was the Brummy.

Presenter26:13

Role

Presenter26:16

So you mentioned, Stephen, that kind of brummy attitude and sense of humour. How would you describe that? What does that mean to you? The brummy kind of mindset?

Steven Knight26:24

It's sort of self-deprecating, don't get too big for your boots, and deflecting emotion.

Steven Knight26:32

Always down to it. The best example I can think of is Ozzy Osborne in the show that they did, The Osborne.

Speaker 426:38

The other guns.

Steven Knight26:39

He just said, Sharon, we don't need a cat psychiatrist, open the back door.

Presenter26:48

The 90s, Stephen, was a very creative period for you. So, alongside writing for TV, you published three novels. Then, in 1998,

Steven Knight26:54

Then in I

Presenter26:56

Everything changed and you co-created Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. How did it actually happen?

Steven Knight27:02

Well, I was working at Capital and Chris Tarrant was the breakfast show DJ and there was a producer called David Briggs, another writer called Mike Whitehill. And together we used to come up with, first of all, with stuff for the breakfast show on Capital. You know, this is the days of going out at lunchtime and having a drink, so we'd go to the pub and just talk about stuff and talk about ideas for games and things. And David Briggs originally came up with this idea of an unlimited prize. It began with the thing about the grains of rice on the chessboard, where if you double the amount, the grains of rice with each square on the chessboard, by the end of it, you can cover the whole of India with rice. And we just started working on ways of making it a simple quiz. The problem we kept facing was that people.

Speaker 227:27

There's no

Presenter27:45

Because exponential growth gathers pace quite quickly. Yes, it does. So that must have been difficult for broadcasters and insurance.

Steven Knight27:48

Yeah, it does.

Steven Knight27:50

Well, insurance. They wouldn't insure it. So th in the end they said you've got to think of a limit, so obviously a million. But then the real problem was getting people played with real people with real money. It's the only way to duplicate what's going to happen. You know, only fifty quid, hundred quid, whatever.

Steven Knight28:05

But the problem was they kept keeping the money. They wouldn't get to a certain point and then and so we gave them the phone a friend, you know, ask somebody else in the room, 50-50, ask the audience.

Presenter28:08

Yeah.

Steven Knight28:16

It was great for the game'cause it was all working as a technique, but it wasn't keeping people in. And then somebody came up with let's show them the question before they decide. Really simple bit of technique, and it worked.

Presenter28:28

And that was it.

Steven Knight28:29

Yeah, as soon as they saw the question, they thought, well, actually, I might know somebody who knows that. And then they'd go for it.

Presenter28:35

And how quickly did you realize that you had a massive hit on your hands?

Steven Knight28:39

I think it was the second show, We're All in the Green Room. We're not thinking this is anything particular,'cause we've done about three or four of these and they've all gone okay in Europe and stuff. There was a a woman and there was a question and she said, Uh I'll I'll find a friend, I'm gonna ask my dad, he'll know.

Steven Knight28:55

And so she phones her dad and gives him the question. The dad says, I don't know. And the look on her face, like, my dad doesn't know.

Steven Knight29:02

And we were all leaning into the screen going, this is a real drama, you know. The Americans got involved, which was great. I remember taking t uh two of my kids to TGI Fridays in Covent Garden. And in those days they used to have the front page of USA Today on the wall in the men's toilet, and I was there.

Steven Knight29:21

And I walked in and the front page said the show that saved the mouse. For Disney were in trouble at that point.

Steven Knight29:27

And then it was such a hit. It was just ridiculous and people having parties and

Presenter29:32

How much did life change for for you and for your family?

Steven Knight29:33

It worked for your family. It absolutely did. It's one of those, it was quick, but it's incremental.

Presenter29:36

Uh

Steven Knight29:39

Like anything else. You know it's working, then you know it's successful, then you know it's successful in America, then blah blah and then it's all around the world. When I first started getting into Hollywood, I was always introduced as the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire person. I think after that, that's why they took the meeting, yeah.

Presenter29:53

That's why they took the meeting, yeah.

Presenter29:55

Well, I want to find out about that in a minute, but first I'd love to hear some more music if you wouldn't mind. Stephen Knight, it's your fifth choice today.

Steven Knight30:02

Yeah.

Presenter30:03

What have you gone for?

Steven Knight30:03

It's George Michael A Different Corner.

Presenter30:06

And why this one?

Steven Knight30:06

When I was at Capital, there was a charity that we did every year and you get a star to say, I really support this charity, blah, blah, blah. And I was sent to see Wham at the Brixton Academy and get George Michael and Andrew Ridgely to record something for the charity. And I arrived early and the place is empty and they're rehearsing on stage. And I was thinking, Wham, really? You know, have I really got to go and do this?

Presenter30:28

The odds.

Presenter30:31

Not your cup of tea.

Steven Knight30:32

No, not at all.

Steven Knight30:34

And I'm sitting in the auditorium on my own and George Michael is going to each musician and telling them what to do, how to do it. Totally in command. And he starts singing different corner and it was unbelievable. It was so beautiful. The words are great. Bear in mind that at that time people thought they were the ultimate fizzy frothy pop band that were going to come and go, you know, in a couple of weeks. And I just thought, this is amazing. But I mean, it's the words and, you know, turn a different corner and we never would have met. It's just filled with meaning. So that's why I like this song.

Speaker 431:09

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 231:09

Yeah.

Speaker 431:12

You would cut like a knife, so I don't dare.

Speaker 431:20

No, I don't dare.

Speaker 431:24

Cause I've never come close And all of these years You are the only one to stop my tears

Steven Knight31:30

Are the only

Speaker 431:34

I'm so scared I'm so scared.

Presenter31:43

George Michael and a different corner.

Presenter31:46

So, Stephen Knight, in 2002, your film script, Dirty Pretty Things, won the Best British Independent Film Award. It also saw you nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. So, this is hot on the heels of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. At the time, though, you did say you were very glad you didn't win the Oscar. Why?

Steven Knight32:07

It feels like the end when you win it. It's like you've done that. That's that. But yeah, no, it's fantastic to be nominated. And I will use the Leonard Cohen quote about all you need to be a writer is arrogance and inexperience. And I had both. You know, I didn't know what I shouldn't be doing. I did know what I shouldn't be doing. So I was writing it virtually in, well, in Word, not in final draft for a start off. So I was writing this script that I didn't know what I was doing, really. And then it got a lot of attention. So it was great.

Presenter32:35

Your range continues to be broad, so at no point do you start to kind of narrow down and specialise. In fact, you know, quite the reverse, you're just following your imagination. So you've written the story of a band in a music movement, you've written about life in a professional kitchen, chess, organised crime, the SAS during World War II, you've adapted Dickens, science fiction. How much research do you like to do before you embark on a project?

Steven Knight32:41

Spin.

Steven Knight33:01

I do try to research in a different way if possible. One of the things I try to do, like if something's set in, let's say, New York in the 1840s, if you put into Google New York 1840s ice cream or watermelons or any random word, it will take you to something.

Speaker 433:16

Yeah.

Steven Knight33:19

That no one else has ever looked at. And if you say New York 1840s, you'll get all the s the stuff that's about New York in the 1840s. And you know but if you add the random world, you throw the randomness in there.

Presenter33:30

So you need the specificity.

Steven Knight33:31

It will take you somewhere. Nothing to do with the subject, by the way. And then you find doing that got me into a place where I discovered that the biggest loss of life, civilian loss of life, in the United States before the Civil War was a riot involving Shakespeare plays.

Presenter33:47

Really?

Steven Knight33:48

But it takes you to dramas and issues and situations that you wouldn't normally go.

Presenter33:53

And also closer to the texture of reality, what it was actually like, rather than the kind of broad strokes history that everybody knows.

Steven Knight33:56

But it's active.

Steven Knight34:00

That's exactly it. As far as I can see, real life is pretty random and lots of weird things happen. And it seems to be the job of the fiction writer to try and make it more normal. People say, well, that wouldn't happen. Well, look what does happen. The weirdest things do happen. And what I try to do is, if I can, keep that randomness and weirdness of reality in there.

Presenter34:23

Well, this is all very well, but you're currently writing a Star Wars film, Stephen. Searching ice cream is not going to help you there.

Steven Knight34:26

Yeah.

Steven Knight34:28

I'm absolutely loving it. I mean, I'm not allowed to talk about any specifics. It's a new departure, which is why I took it. And also what helps is it's nice big budget to work with, so you can do what you want to do on the page.

Presenter34:38

Two.

Presenter34:41

All right, let's have some more music, Stephen. This is your sixth choice today. What are we going to hear next?

Steven Knight34:46

I'm going to attempt the pronunciation, Meset Cinco Lio and it's basically an example of Bulgarian choral music which sounds if it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea but I just find it absolutely beautiful. There was a particular time when I was writing, if I'm writing I can't have anybody talking or the radio or TV or music with lyrics. This I can put on and I can write. with this on because it's so evocative and it's got such a beautiful mood. I don't know what the words are, which is why it helps, but it's sung by choirs of people who inherit their bit of the song. Their mother sang this part of the song and their grandmother sang this part of the song and the harmonies I just find absolutely beautiful.

Presenter36:00

Messachincolio, sung by Le Mister Devois Bulgar.

Presenter36:06

Stephen, Peaky Blinders then was a huge hit and it put Birmingham on the map in a completely new way. People saw it in a new light after the series. Season one first hit our screens in 2013 with Killian Murphy of course taking the lead role of Tommy Shelby and I think the germ of the idea sprang from the stories that your dad had told you. For those who haven't seen it, how would you sum it up?

Steven Knight36:08

Mm-hmm.

Steven Knight36:31

What I try to do is tell stories of urban gangsters in Birmingham as if it were a Western, as if it were a myth. I was told stories by my mum and dad of things that they experienced when they were kids. So they were kids looking at this world. So there's the first mythology of it. Then when I'm a kid, they're telling me the stories, and it's doubly mythologised.

Presenter36:57

So you're holding on to that.

Steven Knight36:57

Yeah.

Steven Knight36:58

Yeah, and instead of t like making it

Steven Knight37:01

gritty and real and and isn't it a shame? And you know, most things about working class people I think are like either aren't they hilarious or

Steven Knight37:11

Isn't it a shame? You never have that in your stories. No, because it's not true. That's why. I think that it misses the whole point that to see working class life from that perspective is so reductive. I experienced it with my dad when we used to go shoeing horses, like in the the gypsy scrap metal yard.

Presenter37:12

You never have that in your mind.

Steven Knight37:29

The people that we would meet were just so larger than life. They were so rebellious. They were so the other side of the law. They were but really warm and great people. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but and I wanted to get some of that respect for one's own life into this, that these are these are people who are living big, glamorous.

Speaker 237:48

These are

Steven Knight37:51

dramatic lives, that the emotions and passions of these people are the same as anybody else. And try to create what turned out to be fortunately like a global landscape where people in

Steven Knight38:06

Eastern Europe and people in Buenos Aires and people in Rio are getting it and feeling the same thing.

Presenter38:12

And of course, it's gone all over the world. Peaky Blind has been shown in one hundred and eighty countries. It's got a legion of celebrity fans, including Brad Pitt, the late David Bowie, Tom Cruise and Snoop Dogg, who met up with you in person to discuss the show.

Steven Knight38:14

Maybe

Steven Knight38:29

His manager, Ted, met me and we went up to the room and he built this thing to smoke that about a foot long. I'm drinking beer, Ted's drinking gin, and we have this conversation. And Snoop was saying that Peaky reminded him of how he got involved in gang culture. And you know, that's South Central, so how? And Detroit. But it was really interesting because he told me the story of his life and it was all about family.

Steven Knight39:01

And it was all about family keeping you in and escaping from family to do the bad stuff and then the family relocating their emotions and loyalties to follow you and then escaping again. He was such a great blow. He was so nice to talk to. But it just made me understand that there is something in Peaky that one has luckily come across that is pretty universal.

Presenter39:26

Yes. So you've recently opened a new studio complex, Stephen, which initially you financed yourself in the heart of Birmingham. How are you feeling about Digbeth Lock?

Steven Knight39:34

It's fantastic. It's so exciting to see it coming together. I mean still we're still putting it together, but we've already done well, we shopped this town there and we'll be doing Peaky Blind as the movie.

Presenter39:45

which is shaping up beautifully.

Steven Knight39:48

It's a fitting end to this part of the story, and we've got an absolutely fantastic cast. I mean, I want it to be sort of a legacy for Birmingham, but also a place where people come who want to do different stuff-brave stuff, bold stuff. You know, it's going to be a mixture of first-time filmmakers, and also there are people that I work with over there in LA who are very interested in coming over. So it will be a creative.

Steven Knight40:12

Melting pot, I hope.

Presenter40:13

And what will that mean for local people?

Steven Knight40:15

We've announced a couple of initiatives already where, along with Kudos, who are the production company I love to work with, and I've set up a thing called Kudos Night and we are financing the courses and the education of people from that area. So specific postcodes like Bordesley and Small Eath and Digbeth for them to be educated and skilled up in the disciplines that are needed that are not all technical. There's carpenters and electricians and all sorts of things needed in the film industry. You know, it's common sense because we don't want to bust people in from London. But we really want this not to be a spaceship lands, put barbed wire around it. We want this to be absolutely part of the community and for local people to be walking to work.

Speaker 240:43

Interesting.

Presenter40:56

Let's have some more music, Stephen Knight. Disc number seven, if you wouldn't mind. What have you got for us next?

Steven Knight41:00

It's Nick Caven the Bad Seed's Red Right Hand, which is the music that I think everyone associates with the Peakies.

Presenter41:07

And how did it end up as the kinda title theme?

Steven Knight41:10

Well, when we were first putting the thing together, there's an opening scene where Killian rides a black horse through the streets of Small Heath. But what had happened is that a lot of the editors had been using contemporary music to give the mood of the thing while they're cutting it. And it was so good that in the end, it didn't feel like a decision at the time. You know, it didn't feel like let's do something radical.

Steven Knight41:31

It actually felt as if this was the most natural thing in the world. So contemporary music on a 1920s show, and that became a really important part of it.

Speaker 441:57

Take a little walk to the edge of town and go across the track

Speaker 442:04

Where the viaduct looms like a bird of doom As he ships

Presenter42:10

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Red Right Hand. So Stephen Knight, in the age of streaming, we usually don't have millions of people sitting down at the same time to watch T V.

Speaker 442:16

We

Steven Knight42:16

Yeah.

Presenter42:21

Certainly not as a matter of course. Do you miss that?

Steven Knight42:24

I do. I think it's a bit royal family, but when I was a kid

Steven Knight42:28

And there were nine of us sitting there watching the telly. The fun was just making comments about it and you all have your own opinion and you know everybody has their own reaction. And yeah, I think it's a shame that we don't collectively experience that. I mean it's it's very bizarre now because at the time everybody's saying, oh, television it's destroying the family, it's you know but in fact it was the gloom.

Presenter42:49

It's almost time to cast you away. What kind of island are you hoping to get?

Steven Knight42:52

If it is a little bit more Hebridean, I wouldn't mind that too much. Surrounded by fish, though, because I do love to go fishing.

Presenter42:59

Oh, so you're a fisherman.

Steven Knight43:00

Oh yeah yeah.

Presenter43:01

Right. So what kind of waters would you hope for?

Steven Knight43:03

Something with mackerel in it. That's easy and great. But I think fishing is like writing. You get your idea, you cast it out, and you wait. See what happens.

Presenter43:12

What'll be the biggest challenge of life as a castaway? You're going to be able to catch some fish to eat, so food'll be okay.

Steven Knight43:18

Yes. Obviously missing, you know, all of the loved ones in one's life would be the main issue.

Presenter43:25

You read out of what seven?

Steven Knight43:27

Yeah.

Presenter43:27

Yes. So the seventh of seven and then seven yourself.

Steven Knight43:30

That's not the seventh son or the seventh sun, but nearly.

Presenter43:32

Some

Presenter43:34

So plenty of people to miss.

Steven Knight43:35

Yes, absolutely. I do like isolation because I think writers it is an isolating sort of job.

Presenter43:40

Do you get much chance to be isolated? I mean, you sound like, you know, from your description, you're someone who's been surrounded by people your whole life.

Steven Knight43:47

But I think that when you're a kid you do learn how to switch that off. So there can be lots going on and you can just sit there and be in your own space. And sometimes the idea of an island is very appealing.

Presenter43:51

Can be lots.

Presenter44:00

Have you got any practical skills that might come in handy on the island?

Steven Knight44:03

I'm pretty good at lighting fires. Pretty good at fishing. Other than that.

Steven Knight44:09

Not really, no. I mean, maybe.

Presenter44:11

Not even with growing up with s a dad who was working outdoors in all weathers and so practical himself.

Steven Knight44:17

Well, here's the thing. There's a I think it's a Romani word nesh, which means your ability to do practical things.

Speaker 444:24

Okay.

Steven Knight44:25

I'm not bad, but my dad used to say, I can tell whether you can shoe a horse by the way you take off your jacket. I don't know how he did that, but he made a job.

Presenter44:34

It's a vibe, isn't it?

Steven Knight44:35

So, who might say either you can do this sort of stuff or you can't, and I couldn't. I've got a brother who could, and he became a blacksmith.

Presenter44:41

So does that mean that you're not Nesh then, or are you Nesh?

Steven Knight44:44

No, I'm less nash than I was, but I think when I was younger I was very nash.

Presenter44:47

This might ness you off.

Steven Knight44:48

Oh, this would be that the island should be called Notnesh.

Presenter44:51

Well, we'll let you have one more piece of music before you go to take with you. Your final choice today, please, Stephen Knight. What are we going to hear?

Steven Knight44:58

This is Harry Lauder singing Keat Rudd on To the End of the Road.

Presenter45:02

And what does this track mean to you?

Steven Knight45:03

Oh, everything. I mean this is the song of my team, Birmingham City.

Steven Knight45:07

All my extended family are Blues fans. All grandparents were Blues fans. My granddad was at the Battle of the Somme before he went over the top. They gave him a card saying leave a message for a loved one in case she gets killed. And his first words were, Give the Blues a shout for me.

Presenter45:25

Did he survive?

Steven Knight45:26

Yo, he did. Yo, he got shot, but he survived.

Steven Knight45:28

For me, it's the thing that's the glue that, you know, all in the past, all the uncles and aunties, we all used to go as a great big tribe to the match. And we have this song that we sing called Keep Your Unto the End of the Road. And it was written by Harry Lauder, who wrote it for his son, who was killed in the First World War. And it's just the words of it are very plain, very simple, very practical. It's like, this is what you should do with your life. And if you're a blues fan, any blues fans listening know that it's been a long, hard road. But we're getting there.

Presenter45:59

And it must mean a lot too to see the fans on the terraces in their caps looking like Peaky Blinders, you know, with their banners that same by order of the Peaky Blinders.

Steven Knight46:08

It's great to see that happening. You know, I think it's not a universal thing amongst Blues fans, which is great. It's fine. A lot of fans went for one of our most famous games against Bolton dressed as Peakies. It's wonderful. I love it. I love it when that happens. When you know life imitates art.

Speaker 446:23

Every road through life is a long, long road filled with joys and sorrows too.

Speaker 446:33

As we journey on, how your heart may year

Steven Knight46:34

On how you're h

Speaker 446:38

For the things most dear to you.

Speaker 446:43

With wealth and love tis sold, But all what we must grow

Speaker 446:53

Keep right on.

Speaker 446:55

The end of the rule.

Speaker 446:58

Right on to the end.

Presenter47:02

HARRY LODAR KEEP right on until the end of the road. Well, it's the end of the road now, Stephen Knight. I'm going to cast you away to the island. I will of course give you the books to take with you the Bible, the complete works of Shakspere.

Steven Knight47:13

Yeah.

Presenter47:13

And you can take one other book of your choice. What would you like?

Steven Knight47:16

The Robert Graves are Greek myths.

Presenter47:18

Why?

Steven Knight47:19

When I discovered the Greek myths quite a long time ago via that book, it was just a revelation in terms of amoral heroes, dreamlike events, visceral part of just human psychology, and it would keep me going for a long time.

Presenter47:35

Well, it's yours. You can also have a luxury to take with you on the island, make your experience there a little bit easier for sensory stimulation. What do you fancy?

Steven Knight47:44

I'm afraid it's a laptop.

Presenter47:45

Well, it can't be connected to anything. You know that, right? It can't be connected to the internet or anything like that.

Steven Knight47:50

No, I don't want the internet, just power.

Presenter47:53

So you just want to write.

Steven Knight47:54

Yeah.

Presenter47:55

As long as you want to be able to write, I think we can do you an unconnected laptop.

Steven Knight47:56

Yeah, we can

Steven Knight47:59

Cool.

Presenter48:00

With maybe a solar panel.

Steven Knight48:01

Actually, yeah, solar panel is the answer. Definitely.

Presenter48:03

All right, it's yours. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first?

Steven Knight48:11

Think, because of the message in the words, it would be Harry Lauder's Keep Right On to the End of the Road.

Presenter48:16

Perfect thought for the island, that, isn't it? Stephen Knight, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Steven Knight48:21

It was an absolute pleasure.

Presenter48:36

Hello. Oh, it was lovely chatting to Stephen, and I hope he's equally happy tapping away on his solar-powered laptop, writing his next script. There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive which you can listen to. We've cast many writers away over the years, including John Boyne, Anne Cleves, Deborah Levy, and Zadie Smith. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Disc's website. The studio manager for today's programme was Bob Nettles, the production coordinator was Susie Roylance, and the producer was Sarah Taylor.

Speaker 249:21

Hello, I'm Greg Jenner. I'm the host of Your Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy show that takes history seriously. And we are back for series 8, starting with a live episode recorded at the Hay Literary Festival all about the history of the medieval printed book in England. Our comedian there is Robin Ince. And then we'll be moving on to the life of Mary Anning, the famous paleontologist of the 19th century, with Sarah Pascoe. Then it's off to Germany in the 1920s for an episode on LGBTQ life in Weimar, Germany with Jordan Gray. And then we'll hop on a ship all the way back to Bronze Age Crete to learn about the ancient Minoans with Josie Long. Plus loads more. So if that sounds like fun, listen and subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds.