“Water. Malted barley. Hops. Yeast. Copper. Oak. Fire. Family. Money. Rebellion. Power.” The buzzwords hammered onto the screen at the start of House Of Guinness work like a TL:DR to the next eight episodes: this is Peaky Blinders does Succession; beermat history with broken teeth; a 19th century social reform lesson with Kneecap on the soundtrack. Steven Knight’s bruising Irish drama is more like a line of sticky shots than a slow-poured stout but it still provides a decent chaser for anyone still missing Tommy Shelby.
It’s Dublin, 1868, and the wealthy Guinness family are burying their dad. It’s an event that sparks a riot as republicans and loyalists clash over what the city’s biggest employer represents for Irish politics at home and abroad. Following the hearse come the three kids who are next in line for the beer throne: Arthur, the moustache-twirling Tory (Anthony Boyle), Edward, the bland reformer (Louis Partridge) and Anne, the overlooked sister (Emily Fairn). Into the fight come rebel soldiers (Niamh McCormack and Seamus O’Hara), corporate thugs (James Norton) and Fenian blackmailers (Jack Gleeson, aka Joffrey from Game Of Thrones), as does a web of violence, scandal and electioneering that spans the high-society and low-life of Dublin and New York.
Beautifully shot and handsomely put together, House Of Guinness is more lavish than it probably deserves to be – Knight using his Peaky Blinders pull to soak a small story in enough prestige until it looks like a big one. If you’re not a fan of his style, nothing here will change your mind. Edited like a trailer, often over-written and trying far too hard to make Fontaines D.C. bangers feel like they fit in the 1800s, you can smell the hops through the screen but you can also smell the branded Father’s Day T-shirts that will presumably be in stores next year.
After eight episodes you’ll leave thinking Guinness was an evil empire full of horrible people, but that it also did a lot of good and maybe it’s time for a nice pint. There’s something commendable about making a violent gangster series about the families that ran the Industrial Revolution, but when the real working victims are only seen in the background, mostly stoking a furnace to give a nice backlight to a slow-motion shot, something tastes a bit off.
If you like your history to look modern and sound cool and never be too harrowing without also being a little bit funny, House Of Guinness will go down just fine. But even die-hard Knight fans will find something slightly lacking in the middle of every episode. Boyle, in particular, is never not fun to watch – but the show is sorely missing a Tommy or anyone capable of carrying the ensemble somewhere a bit more powerful.
Compared to Peaky Blinders, we have here a much more interesting backdrop to a much less interesting set of characters. The result is a story that feels thin: characters you only half care about, depths that get skated over, and a style-over-substance pint that could have used a slightly better head.
‘House Of Guinness’ will be available to stream on Netflix from 25 September