Netflix‘s new drama House of Guinness is a raucous look at the succession crisis that struck the super wealthy Guinness family in the late 19th century. When powerful patriarch Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness passes away, he leaves four twenty-something children to divvy up his massive empire. Eldest son Arthur (Anthony Boyle) would prefer to climb the heights of English society than brew beer, lone daughter Anne (Emily Fairn) is stuck in a loveless marriage, and second son Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea) is a mentally-unstable, debt-riddled addict. That leaves youngest son, Edward (Louis Partridge), as the family’s biggest hope for continued success.
While Edward is passionate about the business, principled about his values, and wise beyond his years, he himself is awkward when it comes to basic human interactions. Throughout House of Guinness‘s eight episode run, he finds himself stymied by basic social interactions and can even own up to his own troubles connecting with other people. Edward’s ability to hyper-fixate on the brewery business coupled with his adorable brand of aloofness might suggest that he’d be diagnosed as neurodivergent in modern times.
“After I shot it, after I watched it, I thought maybe I could have turned that up a bit because it was something I spoke about with [director and EP Tom Shankland],” House of Guinness star Louis Partridge told DECIDER. “And ‘neurodivergent’ is a good, right way to put it.”
“Just like some lack of awareness when it comes to how to deal with people and emotions and social life. There is a flicker of that,” he said. “I think he kind of learns stuff along the way and I think, yeah, acknowledges that in himself, possibly throughout the series. But yes, I did intend for a bit of that so thanks for picking up on it.”
In House of Guinness Episode 3, Edward invites Irish Catholic activist Ellen Cochrane (Niamh McCormack) to the Imperial for tea and conversation. He wants to build bridges between his wealthy Protestant family and the Fenians for business purposes. Ellen initially balks at the idea of meeting such a prominent member of a Unionist family in an upper class establishment, but goes anyway.
What follows is a delicious scene where Edward pours Guinness the proper way to show Ellen the importance of “keeping her head,” and Ellen flirtatiously challenges him in reply by gulping a whole pint of stout in one go.
“Oh, my god, I loved it,” Niamh McCormack said. “I had the curtsy at the end, which was like a little improv moment that I tried that Tom, the director, ended up loving. So that was really cool.”
“There’s so much power play going on there, and she kind of then takes the cake with downing that pint in very, very fancy hotel that she has no business being in and she kind of makes her mark on that,” she said. “And it is that power play. And I think that kind of continues with the relationship as the series progresses, but I loved it.”
When we asked Partridge about the flirtatious subtext to the scene, he teased us. “I think that might be your dirty mind!” he said. “No, there was a little something.”
“There was certainly a look in the in the end, but I think at that point Edward is purely business-minded. So he wouldn’t even have clocked, really, until maybe the end, and then he would have said, ‘Oh, no, I daren’t think a thought like that,'” Partridge said. I think it’s all business, business, business for him.”
“But that is the beginning. She is the bit of thread that unravels him,” he admitted, teasing what goes down in future episodes of the new Netflix show. “It’s very naughty of him.”
House of Guinness is now streaming on Netflix.