Television series

House of Cards

Name: House of Cards
Genre: Drama
Released: 1990
Cast: Ian Richardson, Diane Fletcher, Susannah Harker, Colin Jeavons, Michael Kitchen

Ian Richardson's Francis Urquhart turns straight to the camera and lets you in on every lie, and it's the most dangerous seduction on television. Four hours of Machiavellian scheming inside a Thatcher-era Conservative Party, adapted by Andrew Davies with a wicked, theatrical relish. Slow-burn, talky, and utterly compelling for anyone who likes their villains charming and their politics filthy.

TVMaze rating

8.0

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Bodyguard2018

Same BBC appetite for Westminster paranoia and betrayal, but pumped full of thriller adrenaline. Jed Mercurio keeps you guessing about who's using whom right to the final episode.

But It trades Urquhart's cerebral menace for pure pace and plot twists — less character study, more rollercoaster.

A Very English Scandal2018

Hugh Grant plays a charming, self-destructing politician with the same gleeful moral rot Richardson brings to Urquhart. Based on a true scandal, and just as darkly funny.

But It's a lighter, campier tone throughout — comedy first, tragedy second, where House of Cards reverses that order.

The Thick of It2005

Strip away Urquhart's grandeur and you get this: government as chaos, ego, and spin, filmed with the same appetite for backstabbing but played for savage laughs.

But Mockumentary style and rapid-fire swearing are a world away from Urquhart's stately, theatrical villainy.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Richard III1955

Richardson has said he modelled Urquhart directly on Olivier's Richard III, right down to the confiding asides — this is the literal ancestor of House of Cards' central device.

Laurence Olivier's Richard turns to the camera, confides his schemes, and charms you into complicity — the exact device Ian Richardson borrowed wholesale for Urquhart. This is where the trick was invented.

But Shakespearean verse and 1950s theatrical staging are a real leap from television naturalism — it asks for patience.

State of Play2003

A journalist's investigation unravels a conspiracy reaching into Parliament — the same sense that power protects itself at any cost, told with real procedural tension.

But It's more ensemble thriller than character portrait; there's no single magnetic villain to fixate on.

Our Friends in the North1996

A sprawling, decades-spanning look at how political and personal corruption calcify over a lifetime, with early performances from Daniel Craig and Christopher Eccleston.

But Nine hours and thirty years of story is a much bigger commitment than House of Cards' tight four.

The Crown2016

Different institution, same fascination with the private machinery behind public power — ambition, duty, and the cost of holding onto influence, handled with lavish period detail.

But It's far gentler and more reverent; nobody here is plotting murder to keep their job.

Yes Minister1980

The civil service comedy that taught a generation how Whitehall really works, full of the same delight in political manoeuvring, just with the knives sheathed in wit.

But It's pure sitcom — nobody dies, nobody's really in danger, and the stakes stay comfortably low.

Line of Duty2012

Institutional corruption again, this time inside the police, with the same slow tightening of a trap and a knack for making bureaucracy feel like a thriller.

But It's procedural and plot-driven where House of Cards is psychological — you're solving a case, not inhabiting a villain's head.

The Deal2003

A tighter, quieter piece about the Blair-Brown pact, showing how ambition curdles a friendship — smaller in scale but sharp about the same appetites for power.

But It's a single TV film, low-key and dialogue-heavy, without Urquhart's theatrical malice or scale.

Dynasty1981

Same engine — ruthless people manoeuvring for power and destroying rivals — dressed in the gaudiest possible costume instead of Westminster's grey suits.

All the boardroom scheming, marital betrayal, and gleeful backstabbing of Urquhart's world, minus any pretence of seriousness — pure, shoulder-padded soap opera excess played entirely straight.

But It has zero interest in subtlety or political ideas — this is trash, and unapologetically so.

Weiner2016

House of Cards asks what hubris does to a man in power; this documentary shows you the unscripted, un-glamorous version of the same collapse.

A real politician's self-destruction filmed as it happens, with the same uncomfortable intimacy Urquhart offers fictionally — except nobody here is performing for you on purpose.

But There's no fictional distance or dark wit to soften it — just an actual man's ego wrecking his own life on camera.