"Gangsters" isn't just a TV show; it's a wild, kaleidoscopic dive into the heart of 1970s Birmingham, where the streets are teeming with larger-than-life characters, and reality is more of a suggestion than a rule. Created by the mad genius Philip Martin, this BBC series kicked off as a one-off play in 1975, only to explode into two seasons of pure, unfiltered chaos from 1976 to 1978.
Plot and Themes
The tale kicks off with John Kline, a reformed gangster who rolls back into Birmingham like a whirlwind of bad decisions. Fresh out of the clink, he's trying to walk the straight and narrow, but the city's magnetic pull drags him right back into the criminal underworld. But this isn’t your average gangland drama—oh no. This is a place where reality bends and twists like the canals snaking through the city. By the time you hit the second season, the characters are so deep in their own world they start realizing they're in a TV show! Think Shakespearean soliloquies mashed up with a Tarantino fever dream.
Birmingham Locations
Birmingham is more than just a backdrop—it's the gritty, graffiti-splattered canvas on which this psychedelic crime caper is painted. Let's take a tour of the city's most notorious spots:
- Gas Street Basin: Picture it—a murky canal where deals go down faster than a sinking barge. The basin is the beating heart of the city's underworld, where smugglers and gangsters rub shoulders with rats and seagulls. It’s a place where shadows move on their own, and the water seems to whisper secrets.
- Digbeth: Digbeth isn’t just an industrial area; it’s a post-apocalyptic playground where factories stand like concrete dinosaurs, and every corner hides a story too twisted to tell. Here, deals are made under flickering streetlights, and the night hums with the electric buzz of danger.
- The Bull Ring: The Bull Ring shopping center is the city’s chaotic soul—a neon-lit, consumerist circus where every shady deal and chance encounter seems to happen right in front of a bargain-hunting crowd. Imagine dodging pickpockets while trying to close a deal that could cost you more than your wallet.
- The Rotunda: Rising like a cylindrical monolith, The Rotunda towers over Birmingham, watching the city's madness unfold below. It's a symbol of the city’s modernity, or maybe just a really big antenna beaming out signals to the extraterrestrial producers of this bizarre TV show.
- Hockley: In Hockley, the streets buzz with the energy of a thousand cultures colliding. It's where the city's multicultural tapestry is woven together, with each thread representing a different gang, all tangled up in a web of corruption, loyalty, and betrayal.
- Balsall Heath: Welcome to Balsall Heath, the gritty underbelly of Birmingham, where the working-class fight to survive amidst the city's chaos. Here, every alleyway is a potential trap, and every face hides a secret. It’s the kind of place where you can buy anything—if you’re willing to pay the price.
Cultural Impact
"Gangsters" didn’t just push the envelope; it set it on fire and danced around the flames. With its audacious mix of social commentary, surrealism, and fourth-wall-shattering madness, it turned the crime genre on its head. This wasn't just TV—it was a full-blown assault on the senses, an acid trip through the mean streets of Birmingham, a place where reality was as slippery as a dodgy secondhand car salesman. The show dared to tackle the big issues—racism, immigration, corruption—all while winking at the audience and reminding them that, in the end, it was all just a show. Or was it?
Cult classic doesn’t even begin to describe it. "Gangsters" is a legend, a myth, a wild ride that left a mark on British television like a knife in the back. And Birmingham? It’s never looked quite the same since.
Watching this again has revealed so much of Birmingham which has been lost to redevlopment in the 70s, I personally lived in Balsall Heath seeing it as it was back then brings back so much nostalgia. Incredible