To Play the King - Episode 4

The final episode of To Play the King opens with Urquhart giving the King an ultimatum. TVDB's synopsis says only that it could change the history of the British monarchy, and what happened in the end gives the line its weight.

The sources describe the closing stretch of the serial rather than this episode scene by scene. In that stretch Corder, Urquhart's bodyguard and security adviser, discovers that Tim Stamper has been passing information about the death of Mattie Storin to Sarah Harding as insurance. Elizabeth Urquhart urges her husband to deal with both of them, and he orders Corder to do it.

The Conservatives then win the general election with an overall majority of twenty-two seats. Urquhart, whose policies the voters have vindicated despite the King's open opposition, demands the abdication.

Sarah's car explodes as she travels to meet Chloe Carmichael, and Stamper's explodes outside New Scotland Yard. The press treat both as attacks by the Provisional IRA, which suits Urquhart. Colin Jeavons has played Stamper throughout as the loyal fixer, and Kitty Aldridge's Sarah has become Urquhart's closest adviser and lover, so the two deaths remove the only people who might have exposed him.

Nick Brimble plays Corder, who appears in this serial and the next. Michael Kitchen's King is the loser. He was newly crowned at the start of the serial, and his stand against the policies of the Government ends with him forced out in favour of his teenage son.

The end credits show the crowning of the new young King, with Tom Beasley as the boy. At the end of the credits Urquhart smirks at the camera and says, God save the King. The serial closes there, as the first one closed on his drive to the Palace.

Andrew Davies adapted the novel, and the ending differs from Dobbs's book, in which the King abdicates willingly, Stamper does not betray Urquhart and is not killed, and Sarah Harding does not appear at all. Paul Seed directed, and Ken Riddington produced.

When the BBC released the trilogy on Blu-ray, the extras included a short talk by Davies about the controversy over the serial's portrayal of the monarchy, which some viewers had found insulting. A review of the set praised Ian Richardson's consistent work across all three serials.

IMDb voters rate this the best of the four episodes at 8.5 out of 10. It is also the site's recommended episode of the serial.

The sources do not describe scenes within the hour, so this account stays with the events the serial summary and the synopsis support.