Guinness clan's turbulent saga fuels Netflix drama, while real-life heirs steal the show at London premiere

London — The Guinness family briefly upstaged Netflix's eight-part drama about their dynasty as they arrived in force at the London premiere, turning heads with a gothic display that drew cameras away from the stars.

The Netflix period piece, created by Steven Knight of Peaky Blinders fame, traces the fortunes of the Guinness family after the death of Sir Benjamin Guinness in 1868 and follows his four children—Ned, Arthur, Benjamin Jnr and Annie—as they steer the Dublin brewery through a turbulent era that included Irish unrest and famine. Two English actors anchor the cast: James Norton as the family's fictionalised enforcer Sean Rafferty and Louis Partridge, who played Sid Vicious in Danny Boyle's 2022 series about the punk band, as Edward “Ned” Guinness. The show has been described as a Succession-like saga set to a rock-’n’-roll soundtrack and centers on infidelity, a mariage blanc, sibling rivalry and violence.

Early reviews of the drama are mixed. The Irish Times labeled it a wildly unfaithful retelling of the Anglo-Irish dynasty and suggested Knight displays, at best, a rudimentary understanding of Ireland's experiences of colonialism. Another critique notes that filming occurred mainly in Liverpool. Yet critics acknowledge that the most compelling material may lie in the real-life Guinness heirs, a point underscored by a recent family portrait that Daily Mail compared to an aristocratic spin-off of The Addams Family.

The Guinnesses' story is rooted in tragedy and misfortune, wild behavior, scandal and sexual promiscuity. What drives fascination is not only their visibility and size but the way their name sits at the intersection of wealth and intrigue. The family's aristocratic titles — an earldom, peerages and a string of baronetcies — have secured a place at the upper echelons of society, as have their grand mansions and vast fortunes. The 300th anniversary of the brewery's founder, Arthur Guinness, is noted this year for the porter that now sells roughly 1.8 billion pints annually. By the time his great-grandson Edward floated the company on the London Stock Exchange in 1886, he was described as the richest man in Ireland.

The series, directed by Knight, begins with the death of Sir Benjamin in 1868 and dramatizes the rivalry among his four children — Ned, the youngest; Arthur, the eldest; Benjamin Jnr; and Annie, who had married into the peerage. Knight situates the family within the era of Irish unrest and the famine, while tracing how Edward, known as Ned and later the 1st Earl of Iveagh, turned a family of brewers into plutocrats with royal connections. Ned eventually buys an English estate, Elveden in Suffolk, where he entertains the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) and befriends his son, George V, and where he raises his three sons before dying in 1927.

There were personal tragedies for all three sons. Ned's line includes the mysterious drowning of his son-in-law, Prince Friedrich of Prussia, and the drug overdose death of Olivia Channon, an Oxford undergraduate and Ned's great-granddaughter. Walter, a gifted politician, was killed by Jewish terrorists in Cairo in 1944. But the most infamous chapters belong to Ernest's daughters — Maureen, Oonagh and Aileen — who became known as the 'glorious Guinness girls' for their striking looks and social prowess in London during the 1920s and 1930s. They hosted and attended lavish events from Belgravia to Luggala, the Irish estate, and formed a social nucleus that blended wealth with bohemian circles.

Maureen, for example, married Basil Blackwood, heir to the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, and later became known for her mimicry and party pieces. Her sister Caroline Blackwood later garnered attention for her relationships with Lucian Freud and Israel Citkowitz, and for the poignant fates within their circle, including Natalya's death from a drug overdose. The family's history features a long trail of high-profile names and dramatic incidents, including Henrietta Guinness's suicide in 1978 and the kidnapping of Jennifer Guinness in 1986, which ended in tragedy when her husband died in a climbing accident two years later. In recent decades the Guinnesses have remained discreet, though episodes such as Honor Uloth's drowning in 2020 remind that the family's history remains marked by deep tragedy.

Today, the Guinnesses are largely private, but public interest endures. The current head of the family — the 4th Earl of Iveagh, Ned's great-great-grandson — has commented on frictions within the family, noting in Guinness A Family Succession, a book written by the same line, that tensions among siblings were not as severe as public lore would suggest. The Iveagh estate at Elveden, a 23,000-acre property, continues to anchor the family's presence in Britain, and the family's ties to history remain strong, with the estate having served as a film location for productions such as Netflix's The Crown. The Guinness story extends beyond business to social and cultural influence, as the family has moved through London's salons, royal associations and political circles for generations.

As Netflix looks to build out its Guinness universe, this week's red-carpet moment at the premiere underscored how much the real-life dynasty captures the public imagination. A recent exhibition lined up with the premiere drew attention to the family's modern faces and their social circles, including Lady Mary Charteris, a fashion-forward party girl; Daphne Guinness, who grew up in a monastery and later married Greek shipping magnate Spyros Niarchos; and Ivana Lowell, who helped conceptualize the drama. Lord Iveagh's own profile — with a fortune estimated around £916 million — has kept the family in the public eye, even as some relatives have faced scrutiny in the press over past associations.

If Netflix pursues a follow-up series, the production has a ready-made cast, given the family's enduring connection to public life and the palate for theatrical biopics. The show's blend of wealth, power, romance, and danger offers what some viewers crave from prestige TV: a story that is as much about a family's inner dynamics as it is about a business empire. In the eyes of many observers, the Guinness saga — in both its real-life dramas and its screen adaptation — remains a potent cultural phenomenon that transcends the brewery that made the name famous.