Netflix announces cast for ‘Peaky Blinders’ creator’s new series, ‘House of Guinness’
Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is remaining in bed with Netflix, and the screenwriter, producer, director, and showrunner’s next endeavour will be sprawling family drama House of Guinness.
Unfolding across the 19th century in Dublin and New York, the death of patriarch Benjamin Guinness will ignite a power struggle among his nearest and dearest. As the founder and mastermind behind the titular brewery, his four adult children will seek to follow in his footsteps and continue expanding his empire.
The series was first announced back in March, 2024, with Knight at the helm, and he’s quickly becoming a favourite of Netflix. Peaky Blinders may have been a BBC original, but the show became a global phenomenon when it was added to the streaming service’s content library, and the platform will also be backing the upcoming feature film with Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy back as Tommy Shelby.
Knight is also the co-creator of war drama SAS: Rogue Heroes, Tom Hardy’s offbeat period piece Taboo, Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy’s Netflix mini-series All the Light We Cannot See, This Town, and The Veil among others, making him one of the small screen’s leading creatives.
The full cast for House of Guinness has also been unveiled, with Fionn O’Shea playing Benjamin. Anthony Boyle, Louis Partridge, Emily Fair, and Anne Plunket will play children Arthur, Edward, and Anne, with Game of Thrones villain Jack Gleeson as Byron Hughes, while Niamh McCormack, Seamus O’Hara, Dervla Kirwan, Michael McElhatton, Danielle Galligan, David Wilmost, Hilda Fay, and James Norton are all on board.
Karen Wilson, Elinor Day, Martin Haines, Tom Shankland and Ivana Lowell will be serving as executive producers of the eight-episode series, with Cahal Bannon series producer and Howard Burch producing, with a pair of proven TV directors splitting helming duties between them.
Shankland – who has credits on The Missing, The Leftovers, and House of Cards among others – will direct the first five episodes, while The Responder and Boiling Point alumni Mounia All will take over for the for the final three.
There’s plenty of talent attached on either side of the camera, and while it may sound like a broad generalisation, it’s not difficult to imagine House of Guinness being viewed as an Irish, period-set Succession of sorts as the children of a wealthy and powerful magnate try to prove their worth stepping into the power vacuum left behind by the towering figurehead responsible for building a global juggernaut from the ground up.
House of Guinness is officially in production!
— Netflix (@netflix) July 25, 2024
The 8-part series from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight reimagines the period immediately after the death of Sir Benjamin Guinness, the man responsible for the extraordinary success of the Guinness brewery. pic.twitter.com/TZ28AMlexi