![]() Everard Webley in his 1928 novel Point Counter Point was inspired by Mosley’s Labour party days. ![]() One of the first to base a character upon him was the writer Aldous Huxley. In 1998, the actor Jonathan Cake played the fascist leader in Channel 4’s Mosley, a drama based on books by Mosley’s son, Nicholas. Sir Oswald Mosley of Ancoats, sixth baronet (1896-1980), has been portrayed and pastiched on British television and in film in a string of dramas and satires. Peaky Blinders returns on BBC One at 9pm on Sunday 25 August A screen history “My hope would be that know that history was the judge of Mosley, as it will be of all those people who offer simplistic solutions to complicated problems.” While the series will have twists and turns along the way, it seems that its creator may be hoping its ending holds a message for today’s politicians. “What I’m interested in exploring is how an amoral person, whose ideas of human value have been destroyed by his experiences in the first world war, responds when confronted by this ideology.” “To begin with, Mosley and Shelby are very much the same side of the coin,” says Knight. The show also has fun drawing parallels with Tommy Shelby’s own attempts to present himself as a man of the people. They’re just thinking, ‘oh, this all feels refreshing and new.’”Īnthony Bryne, the series director, agrees, describing the populist politics of the time as an ideology that’s “spreading like a virus, and it seems as though there’s no cure for it”. They felt that what was happening in politics wasn’t working, and they aren’t really listening to what’s being said. “It’s easy to see how and why people fell for it without agreeing with anything he says,” adds Claflin. It was important, too, not to underestimate the appeal of Mosley’s populist message. “What was important was trying to get the essence of him without doing an impersonation, because I want the people who remember him to feel that there is real flavour of him there.” “You can see from watching the footage that’s out there of him that he was both incredibly charismatic and incredibly manipulative,” he says. Mosley at a fascist march through south-east London in 1937. A young and arrogant politician on the make, whose thuggery is hidden under a polished veneer, he is still convinced that he can bend the Labour party – which he joined after a spell first as a Conservative MP and then as an independent – to his will.Ĭlaflin, who made his name on Hollywood blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean and The Hunger Games, describes the role as “the most grown-up thing I’ve ever done”, and prepared for it by watching clips of the fascist leader addressing the faithful. With the notorious 1936 Battle of Cable Street, in which Mosley’s fascists were sent packing from London’s East End, some years away, the show’s version of the politician is very much the man described by the Westminster Gazette as “the most polished literary speaker in the Commons”. That’s what was so terrifying about him.” I wanted audiences to remember that he wasn’t somebody spouting things that people didn’t want to hear but rather someone who people did listen to. “All the stories about Mosley mention his charisma, and in Sam we cast an actor who could portray that, but I also wanted to reflect the fact that for lots of people his policies appeared horribly attractive. The dapper Mosley was celebrated when younger for his sharp style and “personal magnetism” Knight admits that the show had to walk a fine line when depicting his appeal. That’s what was so terrifying Steven Knight, creator “Given that we ended the last series with Tommy Shelby getting elected as a Labour politician, it seemed inevitable that he would come into contact with Mosley – and interesting to consider what both men might have in common as well as what marks them apart.” Mosley wasn’t somebody spouting things that people didn’t want to hear but rather someone who people did listen to. “The show always leapfrogs forward two or three years with each series, and in 1929 the most eye-catching storyline, and the one that felt the most resonant to now, was the rise of fascism and the growth of populism and racism in politics across Europe,” he says. ![]() ![]() Mosley, the Labour MP who would go on to found the British Union of Fascists, is the main antagonist in the forthcoming fifth series of the Bafta-award winning Peaky Blinders – and the show’s creator, Steven Knight, says despite the politician’s abhorrent views, the decision to feature him prominently was an easy one. Fascist leader Oswald Mosley has featured on TV and film before, but the portrayal of the charismatic demagogue of the 1920s and 30s can rarely have been so timely. ![]()
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