There’s nothing more invigorating than a good punch-up at a funeral. Especially when it’s fuelled by Guinness.
The eulogy to Sir Benjamin Guinness paid tribute to a man ‘who brought peace and prosperity to the people of Dublin’.
Did the speaker really say that with a straight face? Because a riot was breaking out on the streets as the hearse was wheeled in procession to the cathedral in House Of Guinness.
Of course it was. Creator Steven Knight doesn’t really do peace.
‘We will no longer suck black porter from the teats of the English oppressor,’ bellowed Patrick Cochrane (Seamus O’Hara) of the Fenian Brotherhood as he led one attack.
That was a bit rich because we later discovered that Cochrane was partial to a drop of the black stuff, as long as it was stolen.
The gritty period drama tells the story of the legendary family behind the world-famous brewery, set against the backdrop of 19th-century Dublin and New York (Fionn O’Shea, Louis Partridge, Anthony Boyle and Emily Fairn pictured in show)
Real-life members of the high-society Guinness family led the stars attending the premiere of House Of Guinness, held at London’s Picturehouse Central on Tuesday night
Meanwhile, temperance campaigners burned Sir Ben in effigy and called him a ‘brewer of sin and debauchery’. Whatever happened to not speaking ill of the dead?
It was a fast-moving, tumultuous opening, spoiled only by background music from Kneecap, the controversial Irish hip-hop outfit – a clumsy intrusion of modern politics into the Victorian age.
And the drama kept coming: an arson attack at the brewery, simmering family tensions, and the suggestion of secrets and blackmail.
Yet there’s a barrel-sized flaw in the plot of House Of Guinness: we already know how it ends.
When Knight devised Peaky Blinders, it was a safe bet that most viewers weren’t familiar with gangland Birmingham at the turn of the 20th century.
But Guinness is still going strong, and the family were in charge until the 1980s. The Fenians can plot and rage as much as they like. They’re not going to win.
So we’re left with the family squabbling: Succession with frock coats and a lot more alcohol.
Eldest son Arthur (Anthony Boyle) expects to inherit but has no interest in business. He clearly has sexual secrets, which will put him at the mercy of clever, scheming Fenian Ellen Cochrane (Niamh McCormack – think Angela Rayner in fancy dress).
The drama kept coming: an arson attack at the brewery, simmering family tensions, and the suggestion of secrets and blackmail
The all-star line-up sees Masters Of The Air Anthony Boyle and Enola Holmes star Louis Partridge playing brothers Arthur and Edward respectively (pictured)
House Of Guinness chronicles the extraordinary success of the family behind the famous Irish brewery
Lady Mary Charteris, Daphne Guinness, Lord Ned Iveagh, Ivana Lowell, Jasmine Guinness and Celeste Guinness
Edward (Louis Partridge) is the business brain, and wastes no time. He negotiates a deal with Arthur at the wake that will make his brother a sleeping partner.
That leaves feckless Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea), a drunken gambler, and sister Anne (Emily Fairn), who keeps order in the family but has a secret of her own.
She’s married, but is having a steamy affair with the brewery’s charismatic foreman and fixer, Sean Rafferty (James Norton). Frankly, who could blame her? Strutting and self-confident, he dominates every scene in which he appears.
Anne canoodles with him at one point in the street in full view of the family butler. In a stricter television household, isn’t that a job for a blackmailing housemaid?
