e all have a lot on our mind – tonight is the last ever episode of Peaky Blinders and to say we’re nervous to know what will happen is an understatement.
However, as audiences hold their breath, the BBC provided an extra treat today: the first look at the upcoming series SAS: Rogue Heroes, which will be released later this year on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
The trailer, which launched online and on BBC One, came as both a helpful distraction and an exciting reminder of what’s to come. After all, SAS: Rogue Heroes is from Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, so expectations about the new action-drama are already sky high.
The six-parter series follows the creation of the secret service we now know as the Special Air Service, during the Second World War. It is based on the bestselling book by Ben Macintyre of the same name.
Dominic West in the series
/ BBC/KudosThe trailer is a bit of a riot, and if the series manages to keep any of the same momentum, it’s going to be a blast. There’s more than a whiff of Bond at points, with explosions, jeeps whizzing through deserts, rich plummy accents, and moments of tension with confident and beautiful women in elegant dresses. But, there’s also an extra vein of lawlessness and brotherhood that comes through in the 30 second clip.
The series begins in Cairo in 1941. A young officer called David Stirling is hospitalised and bored and, feeling that there is a better way of going about things that through the traditional commando route, decides to get permission to build a special, super-tough unit. As the BBC puts it, the group are “more rebels than soldiers” and the series will follow the group as they go and cause havoc in enemy territory.
“We are a band of oddities,” says the narrator in the trailer, who is likely to be Stirling. “Gentleman and pirates…” This is as one man holds up a gun, shooting it into the air, then in the next scene a man drives a car with his tongue out, screaming.
French-Algerian actress Sofia Boutella plays Eve, one of the series leads
/ Sophie MutevelianKnight, who is writer and executive producer of the new series, said, “This is a war story like no other, told in a way that is at once inspired by the facts and true to the spirit of this legendary brigade of misfits and adventurers.”
The cast includes Connor Swindells, best known for playing Adam Groff in Sex Education, Skins and Godless actor Jack O’Connell, Game of Thrones actor Alfie Allen, The Affair’s Dominic West and Algerian actor Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Climax and Modern Love) whose character Eve is one of the series leads.
Other cast members include BAFTA-winner Jason Watkins (Line of Duty, The Crown), Tom Glynn-Carney (Dunkirk, The King), Stuart Campbell (Baptiste), Bobby Schofield (Time), Tom Hygreck (La Garçonne), Ralph Davis (Small Axe) and Virgile Bramly (Grand Hotel).
Made by Kudos (a Banijay UK company) for the BBC, the series was filmed in both the UK and in Morocco.