The Krays Feature In ‘Accidental Gangsters’ Adaptation – Deadline 

EXCLUSIVE: Miss Scarlett and the Duke director Declan O’Dwyer is writing and directing a Birmingham TV drama series featuring the notorious Kray twins based on David Krubeogh’s The Accidental Gangster. Beta Films-backed RubyRock Pictures and Canada’s Forté Entertainment are behind the adaptation, titled Accidental Gangsters.

Inspired by true events and set in 1960s Birmingham, the Peaky Blinders-esque non-fiction book charts the ascension of the notorious – and now infamous – Fewtrell family and its rise to power in the swinging clublands of England’s Second City. 

Eddie Fewtrell, the eldest, and his wife Hazel, are on the cusp of opening their second nightclub to fulfil their aim of building a ‘legitimate’ burgeoning empire, but when Philadelphia crime boss Little Nicky Scarfo decides to flood the UK with heroin with the help of the Kray twins, the celebrity London gangsters turn to Eddie.

Forté’s Andrea Garbourie and Mitch Garbourie are set to executive produce the project alongside RubyRock’s Zoë Rocha and Robbie von Werz. Mitch Powell of Second City Productions and Catherine Freeman of RubyRock Pictures will also produce.

Rocha, who runs RubyRock, said the story “has everything – family, nostalgia, crime and an iconic matriarch in Hazel Fewtrell, all weaved into an electrifying emotional rollercoaster.”

“The legacy of Eddie and Hazel Fewtrell has become part of gangland folklore, and I’m incredibly excited to bring the visceral, explosive and uncompromising story of the Fewtrell dynasty back to life,” said O’Dwyer.

Emmy-nominated O’Dwyer’s credits include Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Vera and Free Rein.