TV Pick of the Week: House of Guinness - review by Yvette Huddleston
House of Guinness Netflix, review by Yvette Huddleston
It’s been described as a combination of Succession and Peaky Blinders and that is a pretty good assessment of this prestige new drama about the Guinness family and their beer-making empire from screenwriter, director and creator of Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight. However, that reductive description, while useful in terms of marketing, perhaps doesn’t do the series many favours. It has plenty to recommend it on its own merit.
Loosely based on fact – “This fiction is inspired by true stories” declares the disclaimer – it takes as its starting point the death of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, in 1868. By that time the family was already hugely powerful and rich, with influence far beyond their Dublin brewery. They owned land all around Ireland and were already exporting beer to other countries. In his will Sir Benjamin divides his estate among his four children in an unusual, and frankly unequitable way. Eldest son Arthur (Anthony Boyle) and middle son Edward (Louis Partridge) are made joint owners of the brewery and the entire business on the proviso that neither sell their share to the other, if they do they will lose everything, while dissolute youngest son Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea) receives only a monthly stipend and daughter Anne (Emily Fairn), by dint of being a married woman receives nothing as she will be looked after financially by her husband.
The practicalities of the day-to-day running of the brewery is overseen by fearsome factory manager Sean Rafferty (James Norton) who isn’t afraid to use extreme violence as part of his management strategy. Neither is he above a bit of rabble-rousing. When the smooth passage of Sir Benjamin’s funeral procession is threatened by rioting Fenians, he encourages his workers to get stuck into a fight. It is a combustible period in Irish history. Only two decades on from the potato famine, feelings towards the English are not positive to say the least. And the wealthy Guinness family, while employing a huge number of workers and thereby providing a living for many, is not held in great affection by some.
The scene is set for some excellent drama here and plenty of jeopardy in the mix. Arthur has a secret that would ruin him were it to become public, Anne has secrets of her own (not least her feelings for Rafferty), Benjamin has unpaid gambling debts and a drug and alcohol problem, while Edward’s ambition might prove to be his downfall.