House of Cards (British TV series)

House of Cards
File:House of Cards (BBC) video coverart.jpg
Written by	Andrew Davies Michael Dobbs
Directed by	Paul Seed
Starring	Ian Richardson Susannah Harker David Lyon Diane Fletcher
Music by	Jim Parker
Original language	English
Production
Producer	Ken Riddington
Running time	4 × 55 minutes
Original release
Release	18 November 1990

House of Cards is a 1990 political thriller television drama serial by the BBC in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim. The story was adapted by Andrew Davies from a novel written by Michael Dobbs, a former Chief of Staff at Conservative Party headquarters. Dobbs's novel was also dramatised for radio for BBC World Service in 1996, by Neville Teller, and had two television sequels (To Play the King and The Final Cut). The House of Cards trilogy was ranked 84th in the British Film Institute list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes.

Overview

The antihero of House of Cards is a fictional Conservative Chief Whip, Francis Urquhart played by Ian Richardson. The plot follows his amoral and manipulative scheme to become leader of the governing party and Prime Minister.

It appears Michael Dobbs did not envisage writing the second and third books, as Urquhart dies at the end of the first novel. The screenplay of the BBC's dramatisation of House of Cards differed from the book and hence allowed future series. Dobbs wrote two following books To Play the King and The Final Cut which were televised in 1993 and 1995 respectively.

House of Cards was said to draw from Shakespeare's Macbeth and Richard III, both of which examine issues of power, ambition and corruption. Richardson said he based his performance of the scheming Francis Urquhart on the way Shakespeare portrayed Richard III. Urquhart frequently talks through the camera to the audience, breaking the fourth wall like a Shakespearian soliloquy.

In the dramatisation, the camera frequently focuses on rats for the symbolic effect of filth and conspiracy.

Plot

After the resignation of Margaret Thatcher, the governing Conservative Party is about to elect a new leader. Francis Urquhart MP (Ian Richardson), the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons, introduces viewers to the contestants, from which the popular and decent Henry "Hal" Collingridge (David Lyon) emerges victorious. Urquhart is secretly contemptuous of Collingridge, but expects promotion to a senior position in the Cabinet. After the general election, which the party wins by a reduced majority, Urquhart makes his suggestions for a cabinet reshuffle. However, Collingridge — citing Harold Macmillan's political demise after sacking half his Cabinet — effects no changes at all. Urquhart resolves to oust Collingridge, with encouragement from his wife, Elizabeth (Diane Fletcher).

At the same time — with his wife's blessing — Urquhart begins an affair with the junior political reporter, Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker). It appears that the Urquharts believe that the affair will give him a power over Mattie that will enable him to manipulate her position at the main newspaper, The Chronicle, and subsequently skew her coverage of the Conservative Party's leadership contest. Mattie, while talented, is naïve and apparently somewhat unstable, for she has an apparent electra complex and declares that she will only refer to Urquhart as 'Daddy', a word that later figures prominently in Urquhart's painful flashbacks of her.

Urquhart recruits the party's public relations consultant, Roger O'Neill (Miles Anderson), by blackmailing him about his cocaine addiction. The two subsequently undermine Collingridge, giving the opposition information concerning hospital cuts that make him look foolish at Prime Minister's Question Time. Later, Urquhart blames Party Chairman Lord "Teddy" Billsborough (Nicholas Selby) for the leak of an internal poll showing a drop in Tory numbers, leading Collingridge to sack him. Meanwhile, Urquhart encourages ultraconservative Foreign Secretary Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney) and newspaper tycoon Benjamin Landless to support Collingridge's removal. Finally, Urquhart poses as Collingridge's alcoholic brother Charles "Charlie" Collingridge in order to trade in a chemical company about to benefit from the government. Collingridge becomes falsely accused of insider trading. This, combined with his eroding image and his bad showing at the party conference, forces him to resign.

After Collingridge's resignation, Urquhart — in imitation of William Shakespeare's Richard of Gloucester — at first feigns unwillingness to stand before announcing his candidacy. With the help of his underling, Tim Stamper (Colin Jeavons), Urquhart goes about making sure his competitors drop out of the race: Peter MacKenzie, secretary of health, accidentally runs his car over a protester at a demonstration staged by Urquhart and is forced to withdraw by the public outcry, while Harold Earle, secretary for education, is blackmailed into withdrawing when Urquhart anonymously sends pictures of him in the company of a rentboy whom he had paid for sex.

The first ballot leaves Urquhart to face Samuels and Woolton. He eliminates Woolton by a prolonged scheme: At the party conferences, Urquhart pressures O'Neill into persuading his personal assistant and lover, Penny Guy (Alphonsia Emmanuel), to have sex with Woolton in his suite, with the encounter recorded through a bugged ministerial red box. When the tape is sent to Woolton, he is led to assume that Samuels is behind the scheme and backs Urquhart in the contest. Urquhart also receives support from Collingridge, who is unaware of Urquhart's role in his own downfall. Samuels is forced out of the running when it is revealed that he backed leftist causes as a student at Cambridge.

Stumbling across contradictions in the allegations against the Collingridge brothers, Mattie begins to dig deeper. On Urquhart's orders, O'Neill arranges for her car and flat to be vandalised in a show of intimidation. However, O'Neill becomes increasingly uneasy with what he is being asked to do, with his cocaine addiction adding to his instability. Urquhart mixes O'Neill's cocaine with rat poison, causing him to kill himself when taking the cocaine in a motorway lavatory.

Though initially blind to the truth of matters thanks to her relations with Urquhart, Mattie eventually deduces that Urquhart and his associates are behind the unfortunate downfalls of Collingridge and all of Urquhart's rivals. The story ends with Mattie Storin looking for Urquhart at the point when it looks like his victory is certain. She eventually finds him on the roof garden of the Houses of Parliament, where she confronts him. He admits to what he has done, in particular, to Roger O'Neill's murder. He then asks whether he can trust her, and, though she answers in the affirmative, he says that he does not believe her any more and throws her off the roof, onto a van parked below. While there, an unseen person picks up Mattie's tape recorder, which she had been using to secretly record her conversations with Urquhart.

Here the ending of the TV series differs from the novel. In the novel, Urquhart throws himself from the roof, knowing that Mattie will not hide her information. In the TV series, it is Urquhart who throws Mattie off the roof, onto a van parked below. The book also did not contain a romance between Mattie and Urquhart, as the dramatization did.

Subsequently, the TV series has Urquhart defeating Samuels in the second leadership ballot and ends with him being driven to Buckingham Palace to be invited to form a government by the Queen.

Deviations from the novel in the series

In the novel, but not in the television series:

• Urquhart never speaks directly to the reader; the character is written solely in a third-person perspective.
• When alone, Urquhart is much less self-assured and decisive. He smokes and swears frequently.
• Mattie Storin worked for The Daily Telegraph. (In the television series she was a journalist with the fictional Chronicle newspaper.)
• Mattie Storin does not have a relationship with Urquhart - she does not even talk with him frequently. She does, however, have a sexual relationship with John Krajewski.
• Urquhart's wife is called 'Miranda' and is an extremely minor character, not sharing in his schemes. (In the later novels, To Play the King and The Final Cut, however, she is called 'Elizabeth' and plays a larger role, as in the television series.)
• The Conservative party conference was held in Bournemouth. (In the television series it was in Brighton.)
• Tim Stamper does not exist (although Dobbs introduced him in the novel To Play the King).
• Earle's rent boy appears in person at an important speech of his, distracting him; subsequently, Earle is harassed by reporters who have been told of his indiscretion.
• Urquhart threatens to kill Mattie Storin by hitting her with a chair, but refrains in a fit of cowardice, and jumps to his own death after she leaves the roof garden.

Reception

The first instalment of the TV series coincidentally aired two days before the Conservative Party leadership election. Author Dobbs said that John Major's leadership headquarters "came to a halt" to view the show. During a time of "disillusionment with politics," the series "caught the nation's mood."

It has been ranked 84th in the British Film Institute list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes.

"I couldn't possibly comment"

The drama also introduced and popularised the phrase: "You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment." It was used by Urquhart whenever he could not be seen to agree with a question, with the emphasis on either the 'I' or the 'possibly' depending on the situation. The phrase was even quoted in the House of Commons following the series. A variation on the phrase was written into Terry Pratchett's Hogfather for Death, voiced by Richardson. A further variation was used by Nicola Murray, a fictional government minister, in the third series finale of The Thick of It.

Remake

House of Cards has been remade into an original series in the United States. The show stars Kevin Spacey and is produced and directed by David Fincher and Spacey's Trigger Street Productions. The series is produced and financed by independent studio Media Rights Capital. It is one of Netflix's first forays into original programming and is due to air on 1 February 2013. The series was filmed in Baltimore, Maryland.

See also

• Politics in fiction
• A Very British Coup, a similar drama of fictional contemporary British politics from a left-wing perspective
• Yes Minister, a satirical sitcom about a generic British government, widely described by politicians as accurate

External links

• House of Cards at IMDb
• House of Cards at BBC Four
• House of Cards at Action TV
• House of Cards at British Film Institute Screen Online