A few weeks ago I read, loved and reviewed Sharon Mail's lovely memoire of Ian Richardson, We Could possibly Comment, and I bewailed the fact that I had never seen this marvellous actor on stage, but only on the television. I remembered so well his portrayal of Francis Urquhart the Chief Whip, who went on to become Prime Minister and after reading his, the producer and his fellow thespians comments on the House of Cards, I decided I wanted to watch it again. So off I toodled to Amazon and last week the box set, a snip at £11.98, fell through my letterbox and I have spent the last few nights totally enthralled at the simply superb acting skills of Ian Richardson in this landmark series.
I mentioned in my earlier post, here, that the first in the trilogy opens with FU looking at a photograph of Margaret Thatcher and then he utters the opening line 'well, nothing lasts for ever', smiles at the camera and then we are off. Well, I had forgotten just how totally stunning this opening was and as I watched the episodes unfold in front of me, I realised, sadly, that the fictionalized lives of the MPs in this series is so true to life and nothing, but nothing, has changed in the intervening period. In the first episode we see a beleaguered Prime Minister, weak and clinging to power, being interviewed about a purported share scandal and his response against overwhelming evidence was to say 'I give you my word of honour, you can trust me'. I nearly fell off my chair with a cry of 'O my prophetic soul' at the similarity of this scene and response to the rather sick making cry of 'You know I am a regular kind of guy' from our erstwhile leader, Sir Tony of Blair when he was questioned about the Ecclestone affair in the early days of the present Labour government.
In To Play the King we have a simply staggering performance by Michael Kitchen as the newly crowned King, obviously based on our present Prince of Wales, with all his mannerisms and speech patterns and reflecting what many critics and newspapers have forecast about Charles, that he will interfere and will, with the best of intentions, cause more harm than good. We see his ex-wife, worried about the position of the monarchy and her son and there is another rather louche character in it, a Duchess of the 'huntin' shootin' fishing' type who one can only assume is based, one hopes somewhat loosely, on a prominent figure who joined the current Royal family not so long ago.
Andrew Davies, who wrote the screenplay is, we all know, a master at dramatisations for the BBC. We know him for Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, Emma and others but this series was well before he became a really huge name. I have read, or rather tried to read, the books by Michael Dobbs but found them rather poorly written and this is a case of a bad book making good television. However, the author was an MP so is writing from well gained knowledge which makes it all the more interesting.
The genius of Ian Richardson is that he draws you into the soul of Frances Urquhart, his fears and his regrets though he keeps them well hidden from the public. He is wicked through and through and stops at nothing to gain power, aided and abetted by his Mrs Macbeth of a wife but, like Macbeth, he has his weaknesses and she is well aware of this. As in Shakespeare's play and Verdi's opera, she is the stronger of the two, but no chance of her going mad in The Final Cut, the third of the trilogy as she plans her final masterstroke. Despite all of this and despite the fact we know Urquhart is a murderer and a vile person, because of the sublime acting of Ian Richardson, the viewer finds themselves on his side, we want him to get away with it though of course, we know he should'nt.
This is television acting of a very high order indeed. If you have not seen this series then do get hold of it and prepare to be fascinated. If you know it already, then you will understand precisely what I am saying.
"You may say that Matty, I could not possibly comment"
Priceless....
