3 Deviations from the novel in the series.Due to sexual abuse allegations against the former it ended in 2018 and, despite initially receiving positive reviews, has been described as an inferior version to the "absolutely superb" original. This version was also entitled House of Cards, and starred Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.
In 2013, the serial and the Dobbs novel were the basis for a US adaptation set in Washington, D.C., commissioned and released by Netflix as the first ever major streaming service television show. House of Cards was ranked 84th in the British Film Institute list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000. The opening and closing theme music for this TV series is entitled "Francis Urquhart's March". 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 question of whether the serial's ending is a tragedy (in vein of plays such as Macbeth) is left to the viewer.Īndrew Davies adapted the story from the 1989 novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, a former chief of staff at Conservative Party headquarters. During this drawn-out, ruthless coup, his life is complicated by his relationship with young female reporter Mattie Storin, whom he uses to leak sensitive information in confidence. Thus, he plots an extremely calculated and meticulous plan to bring down the Prime Minister and replace him, in vein of Shakespeare's Richard III (which he often quotes). Urquhart, on the party's classical extreme right, is frustrated over his lack of promotion in the wake of Thatcher's resignation and the moderate government that succeeds it. The story tells the manipulative and sudden rise to power of the machiavellian Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, Francis Urquhart. It was televised by the BBC from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim. House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. For the 2013 American adaptation of the series, see House of Cards (American TV series).