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.

Urquhart, on the party's right wing, is frustrated over his lack of promotion in the wake of Margaret Thatcher's resignation and the moderate government which succeeds it.

He conceives a calculated and meticulous plan to bring down the new prime minister and replace him, on the same lines as Shakespeare's Richard III (which he often quotes).

During this drawn-out and ruthless coup, his life is complicated by his relationship with young female reporter Mattie Storin, whom he uses to leak sensitive information in confidence.

Neville Teller also dramatised Dobbs's novel for the BBC World Service in 1996, and it had two television sequels (To Play the King and The Final Cut).

[2] In 2013, the serial and the Dobbs novel were the basis for an American adaptation set in Washington, D.C., commissioned and released by Netflix as the first ever major streaming service television show.

The antihero of House of Cards is Francis Urquhart, a fictional Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, played by Ian Richardson.

[3] House of Cards was said to draw from Shakespeare's plays Macbeth and Richard III,[4] both of which feature main characters who are corrupted by power and ambition.

Francis Urquhart, the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons, introduces viewers to the contestants, before Henry Collingridge, the Secretary of State for the Environment, emerges victorious.

Another pawn is Roger O'Neill, the party's cocaine-addicted public relations consultant, whom Urquhart blackmails into leaking planned budget cuts, thereby humiliating Collingridge during Prime Minister's Questions.

As Collingridge's image suffers, Urquhart encourages Patrick Woolton, the boorish and lecherous Foreign Secretary, and the equally unpleasant Chronicle owner Benjamin Landless to support his removal.

Seeing contradictions in the allegations against Collingridge and his brother, Mattie begins to dig deeper, while falling in love with Urquhart and blinding herself to his possible role.

Knowing that Urquhart as Chief Whip was adroit at gaining information sensitive enough to blackmail almost anyone, Mattie realises that he is responsible for O'Neill's death and the downfall of his rivals.

The show stars Kevin Spacey as Francis "Frank" Underwood, the Majority Whip of the Democratic caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, who schemes and murders his way to becoming President of the United States.

[16] A variation on the phrase was written into the TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather for the character Death, as an in-joke based on the fact that he was voiced by Richardson.