"Would you be into quickies at all?"
If this were to be made today, perhaps- and I haven't seen the American remake with Kevin Spacey- there wouldn't be so much attention on ho the sausage was made. We'd likely jump cut straight from his downfall being plotted at the end of last episode to the PM's downfall. But in 1990 telly could be slower paced, at least sometimes. This episode is an example of why that can be a good thing.
In contrast to the twisty-turny plotting of the first episode, we are concerned here pretty much exclusively with the workings of Urquhart's plot to bring down Henry Collingridge and very little else- but it's gripping. And we get the usual fourth wall breaking stuff, with an early monologue by Francis doing a bit of that pheasant shooting stuff that was an unremarked-upon pastime of upper class Tories back then. 1990 was a long time ago, when twentysomething political researchers could plausibly be called Kevin and, as per last episode, there's a fair bit of misogyny directed towards Penny. Urquhart does, at least, criticise Patrick Woolton for being boorish, lecherous, anti-Semitic and racist while manipulating him, although there's more than a whiff of snobbery directed at this north country foreign secretary.
Urquhart's manipulating ways work on everyone, culminating in the PM being cruelly ambushed on telly, yet everyone seems to think he's a "good man". Indeed, Mattie seems to think he's not only the ablest man (and men they all are) in the Cabinet but that he's attractive- and, as we see, he has permission from his wife to sleep with her. Shagging is inevitable at this point.
Like the potboiler on which it's based, this is unputdownable telly. And Ian Richardson is incredible.
Showing posts with label Nicholas Selby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicholas Selby. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 June 2019
Tuesday, 25 June 2019
House of Cards: Episode 1
"You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment..."
Long before Kevin Spacey was a household name, let alone disgraced, Ian Richardson became a household name through his extraordinarily sinister, fourth wall breaking, insidious performance as Francis Urquhart. I haven't seen this since that late Autumn of 1990 when Thatcher fell, the only prime minister I could remember. This TV adaptation of Michael Dobbs' potboiler of a novel cheekily alludes to her downfall in its opening shot, an early example of the visual wit that made this series a cut above the original novel.
Other differences are that the party in power is explicitly stated to be the Tories, an of course the asides to camera which give the whole thing both its structure and its intimacy. Urquhart is not just our antihero, he is our intimate guide to the dark arts of politics. If Mattie is seduced by his charms then so are we all, even an old Liberal like me.
It's an uncomfortable reminder of my age, though, that I remember lots of things that happened in 1990, but they did things differently then. Here we see casual sexism and homophobia in the corridors of power, MP's actually speaking in the Commons without notes, an all-male cabinet and smoking everywhere.
But the episode insists entirely of skulduggery and plotting, and all from our Chief Whip’s point of view as he manipulates the wet drip of a PM (although I not that Henry Collingridge, a “wet” Tory, is depicted as wet personally too), his cocaine using fixer, the Cabinet and, through Mattie, the press. The relationship with Mattie is interesting: in a sense he’s grooming her, all for his own benefit. We end with a manufactured scandal about to break and the PM set to fall...
Long before Kevin Spacey was a household name, let alone disgraced, Ian Richardson became a household name through his extraordinarily sinister, fourth wall breaking, insidious performance as Francis Urquhart. I haven't seen this since that late Autumn of 1990 when Thatcher fell, the only prime minister I could remember. This TV adaptation of Michael Dobbs' potboiler of a novel cheekily alludes to her downfall in its opening shot, an early example of the visual wit that made this series a cut above the original novel.
Other differences are that the party in power is explicitly stated to be the Tories, an of course the asides to camera which give the whole thing both its structure and its intimacy. Urquhart is not just our antihero, he is our intimate guide to the dark arts of politics. If Mattie is seduced by his charms then so are we all, even an old Liberal like me.
It's an uncomfortable reminder of my age, though, that I remember lots of things that happened in 1990, but they did things differently then. Here we see casual sexism and homophobia in the corridors of power, MP's actually speaking in the Commons without notes, an all-male cabinet and smoking everywhere.
But the episode insists entirely of skulduggery and plotting, and all from our Chief Whip’s point of view as he manipulates the wet drip of a PM (although I not that Henry Collingridge, a “wet” Tory, is depicted as wet personally too), his cocaine using fixer, the Cabinet and, through Mattie, the press. The relationship with Mattie is interesting: in a sense he’s grooming her, all for his own benefit. We end with a manufactured scandal about to break and the PM set to fall...
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