SAS Rogue Heroes tells the story of the creation of the special forces unit during WWII

The last episode of Peaky Blinders aired earlier this year, although a movie is in the works – 2024 has been bandied around as a potential release date, and Cillian Murphy recently suggested that the script was close to being ready.

The good news for anyone who can’t wait that long is that the hit drama’s writer and creator Steven Knight is back with a new drama, SAS Rogue Heroes, which tells the story of the creation of the special forces unit during the Second World War.

So, like Peaky Blinders, which was inspired by real Birmingham gangs, it does have its roots in history, but it seems we should expect a few dramatic liberties.

Knight, who also serves as executive producer, says: “It has been a privilege to work on a project which tells the story of a renegade band of soldiers who used wit and imagination as much as firepower to halt the march of Fascism across North Africa during the darkest days of the Second World War. 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.”

As you’d expect given Knight’s track record – as well as Peaky Blinders, his credits also include the movies Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises and Spencer, and the TV dramas Taboo and A Christmas Carol – he’s attracted an impressive cast, including Connor Swindells, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Allen, Sofia Boutella and Dominic West. If the average age seems a little on the young side, that’s completely intentional.

Knight says: “I’m really excited to be gathering together the very best of a new generation of British and international talent to tell this remarkable story. The people who are depicted and who did such extraordinary things were young, in their 20s, and we have made a conscious decision to cast people of the same age. We enter this project with a spirit of adventure and believe our young and talented actors will do justice to this period of history.”

It’s a story that begins in North Africa in 1941, where the British Army appears to be losing the war against Germany and the Axis powers.

Eccentric young officer Lieutenant David Stirling (Swindells) is growing increasingly frustrated with the military authorities and their current strategies, and he’s not the only one – Lt. John ‘Jock’ Lewes (Allen) fighting under heavy bombardment in the besieged city of Tobruk, and Lt. Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne (O’Connell), currently ‘detained’ in a military prison, share his misgivings.

However, Lewes thinks the Brits aren’t the only ones making mistakes. He points out that Rommel has moved too far and fast, leaving coastal airfields vulnerable to attack, and while the Germans may be expecting an attack from the sea, anyone coming from the desert would have element of the surprise.

So, a plan forms to parachute in units of men – but first, they’ll have to prove a parachute drop in the desert could actually work.