Charlie Heaton will play Charles Shelby in the upcoming Peaky Blinders sequel series, bringing one of the Shelby family’s quieter but most consequential figures back into the story as it moves into the 1950s. Jamie Bell will take over as Erasmus “Duke” Shelby in the continuation, which Steven Knight is writing.
The new series picks up after the events of The Immortal Man and follows the story beyond the Second World War, with Charles now far removed from the life that made the family famous. He is the son of Thomas and Grace, was largely raised by Lizzie from the mid-1930s onwards, and has severed all ties to the Peaky Blinders gang and the Shelby lifestyle. He has not seen Duke in years.
The casting gives Heaton a role with a long screen history. Billy Marwood first played Charles in the third season, Jensen Clarke took over from the fourth season through the sixth, Billy Jenkins also appeared as the character in the sixth season, and Alfie Thomas Bland played him in The Immortal Man. The character has therefore already lived through several versions on screen, even before the sequel series begins.
That matters because Charles is not just another returning name. He is Duke’s half-brother, and the family line remains central to Knight’s next chapter. Jessica Brown Findlay, Lashana Lynch and Lucy Karczewski will also appear in the new series, which is set in the 1950s and will premiere on One and iPlayer in the UK and on Netflix in the rest of the world in 2026.
Knight has described the era as one in which Charles has moved toward normality after “a violent war, much of it behind enemy lines,” while the wider story turns to Birmingham’s rebuilding after World War Two, where opportunity and danger sit side by side. That puts the sequel in a different register from the original gang saga: less about the rise of the Blinders, more about what survives after the guns go quiet. The question now is whether the Shelby name can stay buried when the family itself is back on screen.
