House of Cards will air on UKTV's Drama from Saturday (July 12) - but the star of this four-part serial is not Kevin Spacey's ruthless US official Frank Underwood, but rather Tory chief whip Francis Urquhart, played with charming malevolence by Ian Richardson.

Adapted by Andrew Davies - writer of Mr Selfridge, Pride and Prejudice and many more - from Michael Dobbs's original novel, the UK iteration of House of Cards was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Scoring BAFTA and Emmy wins in the early '90s, it went on to inspire the acclaimed Netflix series.

© Pete Dadds / Drama / UKTV



"I feel flattered that Netflix chose to reconstruct it," says Davies. "And I'm delighted that ours has been rediscovered, and that it's going to be shown again on Drama."

Francis vs. Frank



But how does the original House of Cards compare to its modern counterpart? Though in many ways a radical departure from the UK series ("They were just using our series as a jumping off point," Davies says of David Fincher and Beau Willimon - the creative minds behind the revamp) the new House owes more to Davies' scripts than you might think.

Both see a charismatic and whip-smart (pun intended) politician make a bid for power after being turned down for promotion, but Davies considers his protagonist - Francis Urquhart, a scoundrel with silver hair and a silver tongue - "more playful" than Kevin Spacey's Underwood: "Ian could go very dark, but he had a very light touch. The Kevin Spacey character has that to some extent, but not so much. He's more of a heavy."

Ironically, when Davies first started to adapt Dobbs's 1989 work for television, he had imagined Urquhart as more of a "bear-like" brute: "I was a bit disconcerted when they cast Ian, who was very slight, but he's got such charisma. He could do it all with a look."

Sexing up politics



One key element from the US show's first season - the twisted relationship between Frank and journalist Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) - also came from Davies, since the sordid affair that Francis engages in with Zoe's counterpart Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker) was not present in Dobbs's source material.

"Robert McKee was a script-writing guru and he said, 'Where there's sex, you've gotta put it right on the spine of the story!' - I thought, that sounds good!" laughs Davies. "Here, the spine of the story is Urquhart's rise to power - so does that mean he's got to have sex with that poor girl? The answer was yes! And she can call him 'Daddy' while they're doing it.

"It was really transgressive and exciting and it really worked - especially given the casting because Susannah Harker looked so sweet. It gave it quite a frisson."

But while Davies invented the notion of Francis/Frank using sex as a tool, he's happy to admit that the new House of Cards has raised the bar when it comes to erotic power-plays - singling out season two's infamous threesome scene as a particularly surprising development. "That was really quite startling!" he remarks. "But it was convincing - I bought it."

The politician's wife

Nathaniel Bell



In addition to altering Mattie's role from the novel, Davies also significantly beefed up the role played by Francis's wife - paving the way for Robin Wright's Claire Underwood to take a central role in the new series. "Again, it's the Shakespeare influence - Macbeth, in this case. I just thought it would be great if she was a real Lady Macbeth character," he says of Claire's precursor Elizabeth (Diane Fletcher).

To kill a king

BBC 1990



Davies scripted three outings for Francis Urquhart in total - following up 1990's House of Cards with 1993's To Play the King and 1995's The Final Cut. "It was as much as I wanted to do," he says. "I think it was as much as anybody wanted to do."

Netflix and the US team meanwhile remain tight-lipped on the prospect of more House of Cards US beyond the upcoming third season - so will the remake owe another debt to its predecessor or might Frank Underwood outlive Francis Urquhart? "I'm certainly keen to see the third season," admits Davies. "Maybe they're just thinking of three seasons too - but it'll be very interesting to find out."

House of Cards is new to Drama (Freeview 20 | Sky 166 | Virgin 190) on Saturday, July 12 at 7pm.

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