Echoes of Shakespeare: Julius Caesar and House of Cards - the Final Cut by Dobbs and BBC

Abstract

In 2017, we published a paper on the dialogue between Michael Dobbs’ House of Cards trilogy, the BBC and Netflix series, and Shakespeare’s plays – Richard III, Macbeth and Othello. This work is a continuation of that first publication and deals with the last volume of Dobbs’ trilogy, The Final Cut, and its adaptation – Season 3 of the BBC series – to show how Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was resignified in those two productions, a subject not explored before. We turn our attention, therefore, to Dobbs’ last novel of the trilogy and to the last season of the BBC series, emphasizing the protagonism, the volubility of the people, and the rhetoric in speeches delivered by Shakespeare’s and Dobbs’ characters. We also try to demonstrate how this last season, despite reproducing a premier weakened by age and pursued by involuntary memories of crimes committed in the past, as in the novel, softens his cruelty and intensifies his emotional problems, making events more palatable and the protagonist more humane to the viewer of the series.