Overview

• All eight episodes are now streaming worldwide on Netflix, drawing praise for production design, performances and stylized presentation, with criticism focused on pacing and loose fidelity to history.
• The story begins in 1868 after Sir Benjamin Guinness’s death, using a will that forces brothers Arthur and Edward to share control of the brewery to drive the family power struggle.
• Every episode opens with the statement that the drama is fiction inspired by true events, and creator Steven Knight says real milestones were used as stepping stones with invention filling the gaps.
• The writers introduced a wholly fictional foreman, Sean Rafferty (played by James Norton), to serve as a fixer and conduit to the darker side of the family’s operations.
• Though set in Dublin and featuring sequences in New York, the production recreated 1860s locations primarily in Liverpool, Manchester, North Wales and Yorkshire due to modern Dublin’s changed streetscapes.