SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Sir Benjamin Guinness of brewery fame has died in 1868, and his funeral procession has set off public wailing and brawling in the streets of Dublin.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HOUSE OF GUINNESS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) God save Ireland.
(CHEERING)
SIMON: "House Of Guinness" is a new series that just premiered on Netflix. Think of "The Crown" with beer. Four Guinness children - Arthur, Edward, Anne and Ben - contend and scheme and strive to run the brewery that is the largest in all Ireland and rapidly expanding overseas. The series is created by Steven Knight, who is also behind the hit show "Peaky Blinders." He joins us from London. Thanks so much for being with us.
STEVEN KNIGHT: It's a pleasure.
SIMON: Help us understand this public display set off by the funeral of Sir Benjamin Guinness.
KNIGHT: Yeah. It was a very difficult time for the Guinness family because the Guinness Brewery was incredibly successful. It had been set up in Dublin. And the population of Dublin and of Ireland, there was a division of - the Guinness family were what was called Anglo-Irish, so they were Protestant, and there was a big majority of Catholics in Dublin. So there was a division within the society. And what Sir Benjamin had tried to do was to walk a tightrope, not particularly successfully, and so there was antagonism towards him. And he left this very successful brewery to his four children, who were left with the task of keeping the brewery going, making it more successful, and also fitting the brewery more comfortably into the society of the city and the country.
SIMON: That's a lot to put on people who are in their 20s, isn't it?
KNIGHT: It's a very good point. I mean, they were in their early 20s, the age of my kids. And I imagine my sons being left this huge burden and blessing, which it was in equal measure, and how they would deal with it.
SIMON: A line, which I imagine you wrote, keeps coming back to me - it is hard to brew beer while wearing white satin gloves.
KNIGHT: Yes.
SIMON: What should we take from that?
KNIGHT: Well, I - a few years ago, in 2005, 2006, I did buy a brewery and ran it with my brothers and sisters. I've got lots of brothers and sisters. And we ran a very small brewery, and I realized that it's incredibly hard work. It's tough. And in the - that line is as regards to the younger brother saying to the older brother, who has been living a good life in London, let's say, that when he comes back that he doesn't feel that his older brother is ready for the hard work, to roll up his sleeves and do the hard work of brewing Guinness.
SIMON: We also see a lot of cash getting slipped between outstretched palms.
KNIGHT: Yes, there was a lot of money involved. There was a lot of profit to be made. But within the family, you know, what happened was that Sir Benjamin left an enormous amount of money. He left land. He left lakes and property and castles. But he managed to make all four of his children unhappy with the will that he wrote.
SIMON: I gather much of the drive to create the series came from a family member, Ivana Lowell.
KNIGHT: Yes, who is an incredible human being. When I met her, it was the best bit of research I could have done because she sort of encapsulates the defiance, the rebellion, the fun, the self-awareness that seems to be in the Guinness DNA. And to have the pleasure of talking to her and hearing the family secrets, the skeletons in the cupboard that have never been published, was, you know, a rare pleasure. So from her, I got not only facts but also the spirit of this family who, you know, changed history in Ireland, in a sense changed history in the world, but were so aware of their own absurdity - is the way I like to think of it.
SIMON: How much of the story you tell is historically true, and how much is dramatic license?
KNIGHT: Well, it's a bit of both. I mean, what I try to do is take the historical events as stepping stones and then navigate between those true events. And always the true events, the true things that happened, are far more unlikely and extraordinary than the things that you could ever make up. My first task, I think, is to be faithful to the characters, to create especially the siblings, the four characters, as faithfully as I can. And then once you've got those real characters in your mind, you then set them off between the stepping stones of real events.
SIMON: One of the many themes is that they have designs on America, don't they?
KNIGHT: Yeah. I mean, America then was a huge market. The Civil War was over, and it was considered to be the future. So you've got the two coasts with huge populations, and as it says in the story, there is a big army in the middle that's very thirsty. So the idea was to make sure the flag of Guinness was planted in the United States, especially on the East Coast, where a lot of people had emigrated from Ireland as a consequence of the famine.
SIMON: The brewery we see in the series looks terrific - fiery, steamy and dramatic. And then I read it's - it isn't even in Dublin.
KNIGHT: I know. Well, the real brewery was not possible to film in. And obviously, breweries now are very different, as I know, very different to how breweries were then, which were - they were much more organic. And so we recreated faithfully the true nature of that original brewery, which was fire and steam and smoke. And we built it in Liverpool. The fact is that the location scouts who find these places, who are so skilled at doing it - they always are looking for whichever place they can find that is most like the original. And it happened that a lot of places that were most like Dublin in the 1860s were in the north of England.
SIMON: At the end of the day, do you actually pop open a Guinness?
KNIGHT: I prefer it to be poured on draught 'cause I think that's - the best way to enjoy Guinness is on draught. But, yeah. I mean, my love of Guinness preceded this, and while I was writing it, it didn't lessen at all.
SIMON: My gosh. I'm sorry to suggest even the possibility of a bottle. It just occurred to me. Forgive me.
KNIGHT: (Laughter) No, bottle's good. It's different, but it's good.
SIMON: Yeah. It has been announced that you're writing the next James Bond film.
KNIGHT: Yes. That is true.
SIMON: Would you like to bounce any ideas off of us?
KNIGHT: Yes, actually. Yes. That would be very good. That would be great. But it would be good to do that off-air, probably...
SIMON: Oh. All right.
KNIGHT: ...Because it's a...
SIMON: All right.
KNIGHT: It's a very particular sort of adventure, and so I am sworn to secrecy on all levels.
SIMON: We had to ask, as I'm sure you understand.
KNIGHT: Of course. Of course.
SIMON: Steven Knight. His new series, now on Netflix - "House Of Guinness." Thank you so much for being with us.
KNIGHT: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF ILAN ESHKERI'S "HOUSE OF GUINNESS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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