HOUSE OF CARDS (UK) - part four

PLOT SUMMARY: The final episode covers the events of the Conservative Party leadership election.  Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) declares his candidacy, "reluctantly" persuaded by the clamour of his colleagues.  He eliminates the weaker candidates by dredging up scandal from their past. After the first ballot, Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney), Michael Samuels (Damien Thomas) and Urquhart remain in the race.  Urquhart uses the sex tape with Penny Guy (Alphonisa Emmanuel) to blackmail Woolton into withdrawing.  Elegantly for Urquhart, Woolton thinks that because Penny was seeing Roger O'Neill (Miles Anderson), and he in turn worked for Lord Billsborough who is now backing Samuels, that it is Samuels who is behind it all.  Woolton therefore gives his public backing to Urquhart.  O'Neill, distraught that Penny left him, drinking increasingly heavily, is casually murdered by Urquhart, who stages an overdose.  Meanwhile, Mattie (Susannah Harker) listens back to her taped conversations with Urquhart and realises that he was behind it all.  She confronts him in the roof garden, he throws her off.  We do not know if he has been elected leader, but we do know that someone has picked up Mattie's tape recorder.

COMMENTS:  For those of us who grew up in the era of Tory sleaze the idea that extra marital conference shags were commonplace is easy to accept.  But the comment from Woolton's wife to "inform me if I need an HIV test" is very much of its time - at the height of the AIDS scare - and chillingly cool in its delivery.  The political machinations are handled beautifully and far more convincingly than in the remake.  However, I believe that Corey Stoll's depiction of Peter Russo emotional decline is far more convincing than Miles Anderson's O'Neill, and the subsequent murder is therefore less emotionally impactful.  That said, I love how Urquhart's actions are so very callous, his mischievous smile, his self-justifying, mocking, nasty soliloquy, and the final congratulatory full-mouthed kiss with his wife Elizabeth (Diane Fletcher).  I hadn't remembered that Urquhart was't actually elected leader at the end of this episode.  Maybe in my memory I just took it for granted because I'd seen the following series. So, to that end, the series has a more ambiguous ending that I'd thought, but still with more of a conclusion that the US remake. 

"This is an act of mercy. Truly. You know the man now. You can see he has nowhere to go. He's begging to be set free. He's had enough. And when he's finally at rest, then we'll be free to remember the real Roger. The burning boy in the green jersey. With that legendary, fabulous sidestep and brave, terrified smile."

HOUSE OF CARDS (UK) - part three

Elizabeth (Diane Fletcher) and Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson).

PLOT SUMMARY: The race for the Tory party leadership begins, with Environment Minister Michael Samuels (Damien Thomas) and Foreign Minister Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney) the front runners.   Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) ensures that both Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker)'s newspaper and the ex Prime Minister (David Lyon) back him.  He also sleeps with her, but is unaware that she has taped their conversations. Moreover, she is investigating the insider trading scandal, realises that Charles Collingridge (James Villiers) was framed, and that Conservative Central Office is implicated.  She turns to Urquhart for help, unaware that he is the one arranging for her to be scared off the case. She agrees to let "daddy" investigate.

COMMENTS:  Oh but this episode is so rich in dramatic irony.  The ex PM fawning over Urquhart, his loyal lapdog, when all the time it's Urquhart who set the hounds on him.  And then the irony of Urquhart actually rather liking and respecting Woolton, while simultaneously entrapping him in a honey pot.  And finally, Mattie trusting in "daddy" - harmless, crumbly old aristo - unaware that he is as rapacious as any new-monied Tory. The language is also a delight. Vicious, witty, layer upon layer of class hatred - simply delicious and menacing and building up our image of Urquhart as a ruthless man:

"His deepest need was that people should like him. An admirable trait, that... in a spaniel or a whore, not, I think, in a Prime Minister. And we've done him a favour, too, if he did but know it. He was in the trap and screaming from the moment he took office. We've simply put the poor bastard out of his agony."

HOUSE OF CARDS (UK) - part two

Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart MP, at the despatch box.

PLOT SUMMARY:  Conservative Party Chief Whip Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) continues to seceretly undermine the Prime Minister Henry Colingridge (David Lyon) by planting tabloid stories attacking his brother; leaking confidential party polls showing how unpopular he is and putting the blame on the Party Chairman, Lord Billsborough (Nicholas Selby); and suggesting to the Foreign Minister Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney) that he might run. He sets Woolton up for a fall by planting a bug in his ministerial box, and forcing Roger O'Neill (Miles Anderson) to pimp out his lover Penny Guy (Alphonsia Emmanuel) to Woolton.  Finally, the financial scandal Urquhart prepared for in the previous episode comes to fruition, implicating the Prime Minister's brother, and leading the Prime Minister to resign. Urquhart continues to brief Mattie Storin.  His wife, Elizabeth suggest to Francis that to be sure of Mattie's trust, he should sleep with her. Mattie, who has an Elektra complex, is open to his advances.

COMMENTS: Episode two is set almost entirely at the party conference, and shows the party at its most Machiavellian.  Urquhart is masterful at making the marionettes dance, and we enjoy his mastery. It's a lot more obvious than in the remake, where we gather slowly that Underwood is, via Stamper, pimping out Rachel. This version is far less apologetic and far less mysterious.  Underwood is hands off, whereas Urquhart listens into Woolton shagging Penny on his headphones. It strikes me that in contrast to the remake, we don't actually see Urquhart whip backbenchers to support a bill, and that's rather a shame.  I actually like the idea of seeing Underwood doing his day job, and passing legislation.  Still, there's much to enjoy here.  Mattie gathers strength and gumption in the face of her story potentially being spiked. I particularly enjoy Urquhart's taxonomy of the conference:  "A party conference can be many things. A show of confidence, an agonizing reappraisal, or, as in this case, a series of auditions by pretenders to the throne, while the lost leader withers before our eyes."

HOUSE OF CARDS (UK) - part one

Susannah Harker as the ambitious journalist Mattie Storin.

PLOT SUMMARY:  As the episode opens, the Conservative Party wins a general election albeit with a reduced majority. The Conservative Party Chief Whip, Francis Urquhart MP (Ian Richardson) is refused a promotion to Home Secretary, and urged on by his loyal and ambitious wife Elizabeth, begins to scheme to undermine the Prime Minister, Henry Collingridge (David Lyon).  Urquhart uses ambitious young journalist Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker) to plant stories of  dissension in the ranks and a potential leadership challenge.  The front runner seems to be the young Jewish Environment Minister, Michael Samuels (Damien Thomas).  Urquhart also demands the loyalty of the party's campaign manager, Roger O'Neill, in exchange for keeping his addiction to cocaine, and embezzlement of party funds under wraps.  Finally, Urquhart opens a bank account with dirty money in disguise. 

COMMENTS:  What strikes me about this episode is the depiction of all the prejudices that are especially British - class prejudice, anti-semitism and misogyny.  It really is an unpleasant world to inhabit to an extent that the US remake doesn't approach.  We see Urquhart as a man of privilege, shooting on his estate, and sense his profound sense of entitlement. Urquhart's wife is also far more of a Lady Macbeth figure than Frank Underwood's wife: she has no apparent career and pours her ambitions into him.  Mattie Storin is also more of a sure-footed ambitious journalist than in the US remake.  There are many lines and scenes that have been translated straight from the original series to the remake.  Urquhart offers the addicted O'Neill a scotch, but doesn't take one himself, setting up O'Neill with the line that "it's a little early in the day for me".  Underwood does the same to Russo.  Similarly, O'Neill's secretary calling him pretending to be the Prime Minister becomes Christina calling Peter Russo. But the scale is grander in the original: O'Neill brags to an entire room full of celebrating PR hacks, where Russo merely brags to one congressman.  

I suppose what I love about this episode is the economy of its storytelling and how quickly it's sets up the key relationships. I love its willingness to show the true grime in politics.  There's also a rich seam of humour that's entirely lacking in the remake. The best line is probably Francis rebuke O'Neil for his cocaine habit: the ironic detachment with which he says, "and I don't mean to be old fashioned, but isn't it illegal?"  Brilliant. 

HOUSE OF CARDS (UK) - introduction

Ian Richardson as the legendary Tory Chief Whip,
Francis Urquhart MP.

The original BBC House of Cards has an outsized impact on my political imagination, and indeed the political sensibility of the entire country.  Based on Michael Dobbs' novel, and adapted for the screen by Andrew Davies, it seemed to articulate everything that was dangerously glamorous and decadent about the Thatcher years: the rapacious greed, deep intelligence and sense of entitlement.  Many of the phrases used by its antihero, the Conservative Chief Whip Frances Urquhart, have become part of our everyday political discourse. And with the series being broadcast during the traumatic matricide that ignominiously ended The Iron Lady's reign, it felt like we were being taken right into the soiled heart of the Tory Party in its violent death-throws.  For me, and many others, House of Cards, frames the way in which we think of that era, in just the same way as Shakespeare's Richard III (newly disinterred) clouds our judgement of the real man.

Rewatching the series, available on Netflix, in the light of the US remake, one is reminded of its vitality, economy and wit.  What the US version lacked was its biting sense of humour, and sheer decadence.  There is a sense of grandeur and villainy and real menace that the modern version doesn't even try to approach, so that it's pivotal act of violence feels unearned. By contrast, Francis Urquhart always feels like a glamorous villain, and always feels dangerous. And as the series moves towards its dramatic, definitive final confrontation, everything feels frighteningly credible.  And all that, in under four hours.  By contrast, the Netflix series' attenuated, elongated, ultimately frustrating narrative feels wearyingly bloated. 

So I heartily encourage you to seek out the original series and enjoy what remains the apotheosis of political intrigue. It has dated remarkably well.  The basic means by which British politics is operated are still the same, and the Tory party - stuffed full of landed aristocrats - still the bastion of the elite.  One can only hope that a little of the prejudice toward Hesiltonian new money (he buys his own furniture, rather than inheriting!) and the anti-semitism has softened, but even there, one wouldn't want to speculate.