This Peaky Blinders successor is getting too good to ignore

If you, like me, had a gaping hole in your telly schedule when Peaky Blinders wrapped up in 2022, you’ll have been dead suspicious of anything billed as the next big British crime saga. Steven Knight built something oddly magical out of industrial-era Birmingham – family strife, razor-toting gangsters, and a version of history that was slightly askew (in a good way). That sort of thing doesn’t get replaced overnight.

So, yes, the Netflix feature-length send-off for Tommy Shelby arrived in March, and Cillian Murphy still absolutely owned the role – but let’s be honest, a film is a brief visit. A proper series is the kind of place you live in for a while, and that’s what Knight’s finally seen to again. Enter House of Guinness, which kicked off on Netflix in September 2025 and basically invited all the same inevitable comparisons – sometimes fair, sometimes off the mark.

Netflix’s Newest Big Swing

House of Guinness is Netflix’s flashiest attempt at a serious period drama in donkey’s years. It sets up shop in 1860s Dublin, just after Sir Benjamin Guinness keels over, and immediately his four offspring are at each other’s throats over the will. Instead of drawing the siblings together, the inheritance does what big piles of money always do – tears them apart and brings out every psychological defect the Guinnesses can muster.

Here’s how the family lineup shakes out:

• Arthur (Anthony Boyle) – eldest son and absolute fire hazard, warning lights always on
• Edward (Louis Partridge) – smooth operator, not remotely above nastiness
• Anne (Emily Fairn) – the one you want on your side only because the alternatives are grim
• Ben (Fionn O'Shea) – brings new meaning to the phrase 'family complications'

Everyone keeps mentioning Succession, because how could you not when it’s wealthy weirdos fighting over daddy’s empire? But let’s clear that up: Succession was, underneath it all, about as tragic as a poisonous family reunion conducted for laughs. House of Guinness is messier and rooted in real history – you’re actually watching the Irish industrial revolution grind away outside the family home.

Netflix, for their part, treated the usual first-seasons-with-potential like state secrets. No early renewal, just 17 million viewers making noise and a lot of hand-wringing about what comes next. Thankfully, the second series got proper confirmation not long after launch. If you were wavering, that’s your cue to just jump in.

The Most Vicious Family on Irish TV (and Their World)

Knight doesn’t let the Guinnesses play their inheritance games in a vacuum. The show piles on: religious tension (the family’s a Protestant giant besieged within Catholic Dublin), striking workers, political grudge matches, and a whole background of 19th-century discomfort. Every nasty turn in the plot actually matters, because the world isn’t letting anyone off lightly.

James Norton, as Patrick Cochrane – Arthur’s biggest political rival – puts in a performance so good it’s almost annoying he didn’t win every award going. Norton’s been stuck in beige roles before, but Knight wrote Cochrane to make proper use of his skills: real menace, unpredictability, and a slow-burn revenge arc that’s frankly brilliant. The first series signs off with Cochrane taking a shot at Arthur in the middle of an election rally; not exactly a Sopranos-grade blackout, but it does the job lining everyone up for the fallout.

Renewal Drama (and Why It Was a Close Thing)

The renewal wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Production for the second series kicks off January 2027, but that’s only after Knight finishes writing the next James Bond film over at Amazon. How the bloke’s spinning all these plates is anyone’s guess, and more to the point, Netflix’s track record isn’t exactly comforting. They’re infamous for canning anything expensive-that-isn’t-Bridgerton unless it explodes straight off. House of Guinness isn’t bed-hopping corsets; it’s moodier, more interested in history than heavy breathing – so getting renewed is a bit of a coup.

Knight told the Irish Mirror after premiering that he had ideas for ‘Seasons two and three and four’ and wanted to stretch the programme out to Peaky proportions, universe-wise. That vision’s still not a guarantee – we’re just on for one more season so far – but the first series ended with such proper tension that fans will be watching closely for where Arthur’s bullet-dodging goes next.

Series 1 of House of Guinness is on Netflix right now.