House of Guinness invites viewers into the turbulent world of Dublin’s most famous brewing family in the late 1860s, weaving ambition, betrayal and passion into a richly textured historical drama.
With a cast full of fresh faces and a tone reminiscent of Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders, the series balances soapy intrigue and emotional depth without giving away its many twists. As the Guinness children grapple with legacy and desire, the show quietly sets the stage for something compelling and unexpected.
What You’ll Find in This Article
- The Snapshot: House of Guinness in a Nutshell
- The Performances of the House of Guinness Cast
- The Careers of the House of Guinness Cast
The Snapshot: House of Guinness in a Nutshell
Inspired by actual events, this historical drama follows the four children of brewing legend Sir Benjamin Guinness, who must deal with the impact of his last will and testament in late 1860s Dublin.
(All episodes of House of Guinness are now streaming on Netflix.)
The Performances of the House of Guinness Cast
Let’s get this out of the way up front: if you’re a fan of Peaky Blinders, you’re going to love this. Created and written by Steven Knight, who also wrote every episode of that show, House of Guinness maintains the same tone and feel, employing the same soapy tropes to mostly great effect.
The reason why we’re talking about it is that, like the earlier show, this too features a mostly untested and unknown cast. James Norton is the biggest name here (and more about him directly), and Anthony Boyle, who plays the oldest son, Arthur Guinness, had a major role in the Apple TV+ limited series Masters of the Air. Otherwise, most of the faces will be new to American audiences. Well, except for Jack Gleeson, who shows up here as the Guinness kids’ illegitimate cousin, Byron Hedges, and who most people will know as Joffrey Baratheon in a little show called Game of Thrones. More about him directly, too.
First, there are the other three Guinness children, Arthur’s younger siblings. Louis Partridge is the second son of Edwin, who takes over the brewery and spearheads its entry to America; Fionn O’Shea is the youngest son of Benjamin, and Emily Fairn is the sole daughter of Anne. O’Shea’s role is limited, and when he does show up, Benjamin tends to be in some form of inebriation.
The other three are stalwarts of the first season, alongside Norton, seasoned veteran Michael McElhatton as trusted butler John Potter, Danielle Galligan as Arthur’s wife Olivia, and Niamh McCormack as Ellen Cochrane, a Dublin commoner and revolutionary who falls in love with Edwin.
The Guinness kids first. Partridge is essentially the star of the series, as Edwin takes over the brewery after his father’s death and his older brother focuses on his political career. Partridge is tall and handsome, looking very comfortable as the action revolves around him. Edwin is something of a cold fish whose primary arc in the first season, aside from continuing to build his late father’s empire, is to come to life a bit.
Helping him do that is McCormack’s Ellen. McCormack is a revelation here, almost the very definition of your fresh-faced Irish lass. But aside from the obvious, that she’s young and gorgeous, she makes you believe that a stick-in-the-mud like Edwin could fall for her.
Her father dismisses Anne Fairn but soon grows into a force to be reckoned with as she pushes Edwin to expand the company’s reach into Dublin itself, building the city to help its residents. Her work turning Anne from a wallflower into a formidable woman is impressive, especially since Anne tends to be underwritten throughout the first season’s eight episodes.
Likewise, McElhatton mostly comments on the often depraved behavior of the Guinness clan. Still, much of his acting comes from his reactions, providing an endless source of welcome comedy that helps keep things moving.
Boyle’s Arthur is a not-so-closeted gay man in a time when that wasn’t the kind of thing one advertised. He mostly leaves the business of the brewery to Edwin and spends his time debauching when he’s not running for Parliament. Boyle marries Galligan’s Olivia, though the marriage is purely for show, and Boyle plays well the combination of shame and passion that this kind of life inspired.
And then there’s Gleeson, who established a gift for onscreen malevolence as the evil Joffrey. Gleeson took a break from film and TV acting after Joffrey was killed off, but you wouldn’t know it from his work here. The malevolence Gleeson displays in Guinness is less about evil and more about avariciousness and the desire to make a heck of a lot of money. Gleeson plays every scene with a wry smile, looking like he’s having more fun than anyone else, which translates to the viewer.
The most interesting performer here, though, is Norton, who is primarily known for playing stuffy buttoned-down Brits. Intellectual sorts who usually wouldn’t be caught dead in a fight. Here, he plays Guinness foreman and fixer Sean Rafferty. As Rafferty, Norton embraces his inner thug and portrays a toughness that audiences have never seen from him before. It’s initially startling, but Norton is such a strong actor that you quickly forget that he’s ever been anything but a rough bastard.
That said, it does help that Rafferty soon starts sleeping with Olivia, and their love story (the other major subplot of the first season) is the sexiest of the bunch.
Norton is a natural leading man, and his chemistry with Galligan is as strong as Partridge’s with McCormack, making that part of it an easy sell. Especially after Norton spends several episodes getting us used to him being a tough guy, it becomes clear that he is not truly a tough guy. He wears that part well, and it might just be the first in what could be many similar roles that would only make him a bigger star. To be fair, the same could be said of just about everyone here.
The Careers of the House of Guinness Cast
McElhatton is obviously the most experienced player in the cast, with an onscreen career going back to 1990. Over the years, he has performed many small parts in movies and TV shows, along with several larger roles in British TV.
Norton is not quite a star, but he’s the biggest one here, without question. He has worked steadily for years, often as number one on the call sheet in both movies and TV. There has been plenty of British melodrama on the résumé, including a production of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, in which he played the cuckolded husband. Lately, he’s been getting more starring roles in interesting fare like the World War II drama Mr. Jones, the modern spy thriller Rogue Agent and the Netflix historical drama Joy. Showing this side of him will almost certainly lead to a wider array of roles in his future.
Boyle has that massive role in Masters of the Air to his credit, as well as a good-sized supporting turn in the limited series Say Nothing, but it’s Partridge who is probably the most experienced of the rest of the cast. He’s shown up in both Enola Holmes movies, played Sid Vicious in Pistol, a limited series about the Sex Pistols, played Peter Pan in the 2022 film The Lost Girls and shows up in Noah Baumbach’s upcoming drama Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney.
Gleeson is an experienced theater actor, but of course, he’s most known for his role as Joffrey in Game of Thrones. At the same time, Fairn has only appeared in a handful of projects — one of them, interestingly, being Joy, opposite Norton — though she was Laraine Newman in Jason Reitman’s 2024 film Saturday Night, about the first episode of Saturday Night Live.
The biggest role in Galligan’s résumé is a run in the Netflix fantasy series Shadow and Bone. However, she also appeared as a main cast member in two other Irish shows, Obituary and The Walsh Sisters and McCormack’s role in this show is by far the largest of her career. Like with everyone else, that won’t be true for much longer.
Final Takeaways
For new actors stepping into the world of historical drama, House of Guinness offers valuable lessons in balancing complex characters with period authenticity. The show proves that fresh faces can hold their own alongside seasoned performers by embracing nuance and emotional depth. Here are a few actionable tips to help emerging talent make a strong impression on screen:
- Dive deep into your character’s backstory to bring authenticity beyond the script.
- Embrace subtlety. Small reactions often carry more weight than grand gestures.
- Build chemistry with your co-stars to create believable and compelling relationships.
- Don’t shy away from exploring your character’s flaws; complexity drives engagement.
- Stay adaptable and open to direction, especially when working within a period piece’s unique demands.
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