Episode One - BLUE AMENDS - 17/10/12
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A pause. Zhang glances at his terrified daughter through a billow of steam. EXT. SLUM STREET - DAY 1 - 16:55 1/3 We are in a typical Small Heath tenement court. The yard is a hundred foot long and dissected by a cobbled street. Two four-storey tenements glare at each other across the cobbles. Lines of washing are strung across the courtyard and the sheets flap in the breeze. Dozens of children of all ages, all barefoot and dressed in rags, are playing on the cobbles. Women are hanging washing or bringing it in, calling out to each other, their voices echoing against the tenement walls. The air fizzes with yelling and laughter. We spend a moment with these people. A little boy pulls open the door of an outside lavatory, exposing an old man inside, to general hilarity. There are various cats and dogs about the place. Tucked behind a blackened brick wall an illegal gin still drips it’s lethal liquor into a stone jar. The women are all dressed in billowing dresses (in Victorian style) with brightly colored calico head-scarves wrapped around their heads. In spite of the poverty, there is a feeling of huge energy and vigor, rather than despair. In the background we hear the thumping roar of heavy engineering factories. After a few moments, a man riding a beautiful black horse trots into the courtyard. The horse’s hooves click on the cobbles. Instantly, all talking and laughter stops. Whispered word goes around the children and mothers like wildfire. All games are frozen. Washing is left in baskets. Mothers turn to the crowds of children to summon their own. We study the man who has produced such instant terror as he rides into the courtyard. He is immaculately dressed in a dark suit (odd for a man riding a horse) and his boots are polished. He is mid-thirties, handsome and well groomed. On his head he wears a Stetson Hatteras cap angled steeply over his forehead, with generous folds of cloth hanging over his ears. The peak puts his dark eyes in shadow. This man is THOMAS Shelby. He ducks under a line of sheets and finally pulls up his horse and dismounts. The courtyard is now miraculously empty, with all the mothers and children now hiding in doorways or alleys.
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