A SAGA ABOUT the Guinness family, a Marian Keyes adaptation, and a crime series with Jamie Dornan playing identical twins are among the new shows announced by Netflix.
The streaming platform has released details of a slate of new shows that will hit the small screens over the next two years, some of which have particular interest for Irish audiences.
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— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) March 14, 2024
You said goodbye to Top Boy and The Crown. You loved Michelle Keegan’s coats in Fool Me Once. One Day broke your heart into a million pieces (sorry about that). But what’s #NextOnNetflix?
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The series on the Guinness family, described by Netflix as “Europe’s most famous and enduring dynasties”, has a current working title of House of Guinness.
The show will focus on the death of Benjamin Guinness, the second son of Arthur Guinness, who expanded the brewery.
Netflix has yet to announce when the Guinness series will be released, which has been created and written by Steven Knight, the creator of BBC series Peaky Blinders.
Knight said he has “always been fascinated” by the Guinness family and remarked that “wealth, poverty, power, influence, and great tragedy are all intertwined to create a rich tapestry of material to draw from”.
Meanwhile, Anne Mensah, Netflix UK vice-president of content, said the Guinness “epic” has “all the power of Peaky Blinders but the scale and the sweep of a true family saga”.
Set in 19th century Dublin and New York, House of Guinness will explore the consequences of the death of Benjamin Guinness.
It will delve into the “far-reaching impact” his death has on his four children, as well as on a group of Dublin characters who work and interact with the ever-growing Guinness empire.
Elsewhere, Netflix will bring Marian Keyes’ novel Grown Ups to the small screen in 2026.
Grown Ups is about three brothers belonging to the Casey family and their wives and children.
“Like most families, the Caseys are a complicated bunch,” said Netflix of the three couples portrayed in the show.
The streaming platform adds: “Ever-shifting politics. Old and new resentments. Arguments that blow over quickly and hurts that are nursed forever. They’re loyal. Noisy. And bound together by a whole lot of love.”
Keyes said she “screamed” when she received the news that Netflix would bring her book to the small screen, remarking that it has “already brought me so much pleasure as a viewer”.
Keyes will also act as an Executive Producer on Grown Ups and praised producer Samantha Strauss for “getting” the dynamics of the book.
Meanwhile, Netflix is hoping that the only thing better than Jamie Dornan is two Jamie Dornans.
The Holywood actor will play the roles of identical twins, Adam and Lee, in a crime noir series called The Undertow which will be released next year.
Canadian actress Mackenzie Davis will play Adam’s wife Nicola.
Netflix says Nicola’s life takes a dramatic turn when Adam’s long-lost identical twin brother Lee “comes crashing back into her life, and their tangled romantic past threatens to destroy the present”.
It adds of the series: “A terrible accident drives Nicola to protect her children, and over the course of one week, Lee and Nicola are forced together, struggling to maintain a web of secrets and lies.”
Reality TV will also take a rather bizarre turn on Netflix next year when it releases a new show that will see survival expert Bear Grylls hunt down a group of celebrities in the Central American jungle.
Bear Hunt will also be hosted by former This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby.
Elsewhere, Black Mirror returns for its seventh series next year, we’ll get another insight into the Irish Rugby team in Six Nations: Full Contact, and a documentary series on legendary football manager Jose Mourinho is coming to Netflix too.
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