"You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment".
Andrew Davies adapted the story from the novel of the same
name by Michael Dobbs, a former Chief of Staff at Conservative Party
headquarters. Neville Teller also dramatised Dobbs's novel for BBC World
Service in 1996, and it had two television sequels (To Play the King and The
Final Cut). The opening and closing theme music for those TV series is entitled
"Francis Urquhart's March."
The antihero of House of Cards is Francis Urquhart, a
fictional Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, played by Ian Richardson. The
plot follows his amoral and manipulative scheme to become leader of the
governing party and, thus, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Michael Dobbs did not envision 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 differs from the book, and hence allows
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 plays
Macbeth and Richard III, both of which feature main characters who are
corrupted by power and ambition. Richardson has a Shakespearean background and
said he based his characterisation of Urquhart on Shakespeare's portrayal of
Richard III.
Urquhart frequently talks through the camera to the
audience, breaking the fourth wall.
After Margaret Thatcher's resignation, the ruling
Conservative Party is about to elect a new leader. Francis Urquhart (Ian
Richardson), an MP and the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons,
introduces viewers to the contestants, from which Henry "Hal"
Collingridge (David Lyon) emerges victorious. Urquhart is secretly contemptuous
of the well-meaning but weak Collingridge, but expects a promotion to a senior
position in the Cabinet. After the general election, which the party wins by a
reduced majority, Urquhart submits his suggestions for a reshuffle that
includes his desired promotion. However, Collingridge – citing Harold
Macmillan's political demise after the 1962 Night of the Long Knives – effects
no changes at all. Urquhart resolves to oust Collingridge, with encouragement
from his wife, Elizabeth (Diane Fletcher).
At the same time, with Elizabeth's blessing, Urquhart begins
an affair with Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker), a junior political reporter at
a Conservative-leaning tabloid newspaper called The Chronicle. The affair
allows Urquhart to manipulate Mattie and indirectly skew her coverage of the
Conservative leadership contest in his favour. Mattie has an apparent Electra
complex; she finds appeal in Urquhart's much older age and later refers to him
as "Daddy." Another unwitting pawn is Roger O'Neill (Miles Anderson),
the party's cocaine-addicted public relations consultant.
Urquhart blackmails O'Neill into leaking information on
budget cuts that humiliates Collingridge during the Prime Minister's Questions.
Later, he blames party chairman Lord "Teddy" Billsborough (Nicholas
Selby) for leaking an internal poll showing a drop in Tory numbers, leading
Collingridge to sack him. As Collingridge's image suffers, Urquhart encourages
ultraconservative Foreign Secretary Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney) and
Chronicle owner Benjamin Landless to support his removal. Urquhart also poses
as Collingridge's alcoholic brother Charles (James Villiers), to trade shares
in a chemical company about to benefit from advance information confidential to
the government. Consequently, Collingridge becomes falsely accused of insider
trading and is forced to resign.
In the ensuing leadership race, Urquhart initially 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: Health Secretary Peter MacKenzie (Christopher
Owen) accidentally runs his car over a disabled protester at a demonstration
staged by Urquhart and is forced by the public outcry to withdraw, while
Education Secretary Harold Earle (Kenneth Gilbert) is blackmailed into
withdrawing when Urquhart anonymously sends pictures of him in the company of a
rent boy whom Earle had paid for sex.
The first ballot leaves Urquhart to face Woolton and Michael
Samuels, the moderate Environment Secretary supported by Billsborough. Urquhart
eliminates Woolton by a prolonged scheme: at the party conference, he pressures
O'Neill into persuading his personal assistant and lover, Penny Guy (Alphonsia
Emmanuel), to have a one-night stand with Woolton in his suite, which Urquhart
records via 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
the tabloids reveal that he backed leftist causes as a student at University of
Cambridge.
Stumbling across contradictions in the allegations against
Collingridge and his brother, 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, and his cocaine addiction adds 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 is responsible for O'Neill's death and is behind the unfortunate
downfalls of Collingridge and all of Urquhart's rivals.
Mattie looks for Urquhart at the point when it seems his
victory is certain. She eventually finds him on the roof garden of the Houses
of Parliament, where she confronts him. He admits to O'Neill's murder and
everything else he has done. He then asks whether he can trust Mattie, and,
though she answers in the affirmative, he does not believe her and throws her
off the roof onto a van parked below. An unseen person picks up Mattie's tape
recorder, which she had been using to secretly record her conversations with
Urquhart. The series ends with Urquhart defeating Samuels in the second leadership
ballot and being driven to Buckingham Palace to be invited to form a government
by Elizabeth II.
Duncan Matlock (Trevor Eve), a high-flying politician and
Families Minister for the British government, who becomes embroiled in a
tabloid scandal as it is discovered that he has been having a 10-month affair
with a former escort turned parliamentary researcher (Minnie Driver). Duncan's
wife, Flora (Juliet Stevenson), becomes the focus of media attention as her
reactions to the revelations are played out. Initially she plays the part of
the loyal wife, but as an aide of her husband's, Mark Hollister (Anton Lesser),
feeds her details about the affair and various other political scandals that
could be made to happen, she begins to sabotage her husband's integrity and
reputation through a campaign of leaks and misinformation to the press and
British Conservative Party stalwarts. After a series of increasingly
sensational and damaging stories in the press, her husband is forced to resign
in humiliation. The last episode closes with the results of the by-election
being announced on TV. Flora Matlock wins with the support of her party, whilst
her husband is exiled to a minor post in Belgium.
The Politician's Husband is a three-episode British
television miniseries, first shown on BBC Two between 25 April and 9 May 2013.
Written by Paula Milne, it makes a pair with her 1995 drama The Politician's
Wife.
Senior Cabinet minister Aiden Hoynes (David Tennant) and his
wife Freya Gardner (Emily Watson) are a high-flying golden political couple.
Hoynes resigns from his post as part of a planned leadership bid, which is
thwarted when his friend, the equally ambitious Bruce Babbish (Ed Stoppard),
condemns Aiden's resignation and inflammatory resignation speech. Babbish is
aided by Chief Whip Marcus Brock (Roger Allam), who plans to help the former in
his own leadership bid. Freya, who had to temporarily stall her career to look
after her and Aiden's two children, Noah and Ruby, replaces Aiden in Cabinet.
Away from Westminster, husband and wife face an uncertain future as they come
to terms with the diagnosis that Noah (Oscar Kennedy) has Asperger syndrome.
Desperate to salvage his political career, Aiden convinces
Freya to bide her time until an opportune moment in which she can pledge
support to her husband's position, thus undermining the current Prime Minister.
However, soon afterward, on a television interview, Freya is asked point-blank
if she supports her husband's reasons for resigning, and she reluctantly says
she does not. Aiden initially reacts with rage but later reasons that it was
the only answer his wife could give if she hoped to save her job. The two seem
to make up, but then Aiden rapes Freya later that night. Aiden leaves the room
crying and later apologises to his wife for his actions.
Aiden and Freya slowly attempt to mend their relationship.
Undermining their efforts are the necessity that Freya work closely with Bruce
due to the close linkage of their departments (Work and Pensions, and Welfare
and Employment, respectively), leading Aiden to become paranoid that his wife
and Bruce will have an affair. The couple's au pair Dita (Anamaria Marinca)
attempts to seduce Aiden, is rebuffed, then later quits and tells numerous
tabloids she and Aiden were having an affair. Freya stands by her husband,
believing his claims of innocence. Aiden, however has become convinced that
Freya is now sleeping with Bruce, though unknown to him Freya has already
rejected Bruce's attempts at seducing her. Aiden's father Joe (Jack Shepherd)
stays with the family to fill in for Dita.
Aiden calls a meeting with Bruce, telling the latter he
wants to mend their relationship for Freya's sake. He offers Bruce a
revolutionary plan to provide much-needed elder care through incentives offered
to qualified immigrants, overseen by a local start-up management company. Bruce
accepts the plan and readies to propose it, meeting with the management firm.
With Bruce occupied, Aiden makes a speech in the House of Commons decrying the
current government as lacking ethics, which makes headlines. The next day,
Bruce is forced to resign when it is revealed that the firm representatives he
met were actually undercover reporters, tipped off by Aiden, and that they have
video of him soliciting and accepting bribes from them.
Bruce confronts Aiden and Freya, accusing them of having
conspired against him. Freya doesn't believe the accusation but later finds a
draft of the plan in Aiden's home office. She accuses him of being unable to
cope with no longer being "on top" in the relationship and confronts
him over how his deception nearly ended her own career. Then, she becomes
mortified when she realises that was his intent. Aiden accuses Freya of
sleeping with Bruce and claims his scheme was meant to restore things to the
way they originally were, before realising that this means the end of their
marriage.
That night, Aiden's father berates him for what he has done.
The next morning, the couple's daughter, Ruby, finds Aiden's father dead in the
back yard, having died walking back from Aiden's office. After the funeral,
Freya makes arrangements for Aiden to move out.
Six months later, Aiden has seemingly been elected Prime
Minister, with Freya as his Deputy Prime Minister. However, they only remain
married for political purposes. They share a brief private moment before their
first cabinet meeting, comprising staring at each other emotionlessly. As the
cabinet files in, a brief exchange with Marcus Brock reveals that it is Freya,
not Aiden, who has been elected Prime Minister.
The Politician's Husband – TV review
Ambition, betrayal and battles in the bedroom – and that's
just episode one of this follow-up to Paula Milne's The Politician's Wife
Sam Wollaston
@samwollaston
Fri 26 Apr 2013 07.00 BST First published on Fri 26 Apr 2013
07.00 BST
I like to think of a few real politicians watching The
Politician's Husband (BBC1). Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, certainly; it might
give her a few ideas. Ed Miliband, too, for the betrayal, though here the
betrayal is not of a brother, but of a best friend, best man, godparent of
children etc. And any number of politicians for dramatic resignations and/or
leadership challengers – Geoffrey Howe, Michael Heseltine, John Redwood …
In the belated follow-up to Paula Milne's 1995 drama The
Politician's Wife, Westminster golden boy Aiden Hoynes (television's golden boy
David Tennant, worryingly golden-haired here) resigns from the government,
nominally in protest at the PM's immigration policy, though really because he
is challenging for the leadership himself. It backfires big time, mainly
because his best mate, secretary of state for work and pensions and master of
the dark arts Bruce Babbish (Ed Stoppard) hangs him out to dry. Aiden scuttles
home, to plot bitterly, between the school run and comedy dismal MP's surgeries
in the local church hall; and to stare at a symbolic question mark-shaped crack
on the bedroom ceiling. While the political career of his wife, Freya Gardner
(Emily Watson), who always put the brakes on her own ambition to support her
husband and for the good of the family, goes through the roof.
So we're not just talking about power battles in the
corridors of Westminster here, we're (actually mainly) talking about power
battles in the hall and on the landing at the top of the stairs of a semi in a
salubrious-looking London suburb. Oh and in the bedroom; big shift going on in
there too. It's not just careerwise that Freya's on top. And she's enjoying it,
a lot.
There is heaps to enjoy in The Politician's Husband. Well,
him and her, Tennant and Watson; they're both great, and great together,
convincing as a couple. I like – no, not like, approve of – the fact that their
son Noah has Asperger's. That also makes them more convincing, more real – even
before the massive (question
mark-shaped?) cracks begin to appear in their relationship. And Aiden's
difficult relationship with Noah, a son he – and she – clearly find it very
hard to love, acts as a subplot to what is going on between his parents and
down in London SW1.
It's an entertaining, but bleak, picture of politics in this
country too, a world of bitter competitiveness and ruthless ambition that has
very little to do with the interests of the country. Any ideological motivation
someone might have once had is soon squeezed out by the pressure of the system.
Soon it's only about party politics, power, battles and games. Probably fairly
accurate, then.
A couple of things don't quite ring true for me. Aiden's
total betrayal by his pal Bruce, whose hand Aiden held when Bruce's wife left
him and when he had a health scare, now stabbing him in the back and kicking
him in the balls, when he's down. I suspect there's more betrayal to come from
him, I'm thinking maybe involving Freya. No, that's OK, they all do that? OK
then, the bottle of wine that Bruce orders over lunch with Freya? Lunchtime
boozing doesn't go on any more does it? Unless you're Kenneth Clarke, perhaps.
But if you're young and thrusting and power-crazed, you can't do all that after
a bottle of 2009 Châteauneuf du Pape blanc.
The Politician's Husband isn't subtle, sometimes to the
point of crudeness. Like when Freya, invited to drinks at No 10, sneaks in to
the cabinet room, and runs her hands over the backs of the chairs, the ones at
the middle of the table where the PM and the most important members sit, and
she is overcome with a look of deep sensuality, literally seduced by the power.
Ha! Nor is it Borgen – it lacks that humanness, the genuine plausibility and
depth of character of the Danish drama. And though, like Borgen, it does have a
strong woman at its heart, she's not strong simply because she's brilliant; it
looks as if Freya is going to be sucked into the wicked power game with the
rest of them. Oh, what the hell. It's melodrama, and a lot of fun, a big
boiling pot of hot, lusty power soup, with crunchy croutons of deceit and a
generous sprinkling of revenge.
Nice performance by Kirsty Wark too – almost uncanny – as
herself.
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