As others see it

LONDON'S street thugs (in To Play the King which started showing this week on US television) seem relatively benign compared with the killers running wild on American city streets; these are linear descendants of Dickensian ruffians, just as Urquhart and company are walking in footsteps left by Shakespeare's characters.

Much of the political manoeuvring will seem anything but unfamiliar to American, and especially Washington audiences, though the degree to which Urquhart can control the press has no parallel here - does it?

Tom Shales in the 'Washington Post'

WHAT IS a king good for? Perhaps no question better illustrates the political gap separating Britain from America. The British Royal Family is simultaneously venerated and dragged through the mud, looked up to for stability and moral authority, and disparaged as powerless and irrelevant. Imagine if Bill Clinton had to answer to Queen Elizabeth as well as Bob Dole (Senate Republican leader).

Richard Zoglin in 'Time' magazine

AND IS the fat princess, as she is known, having all the scandalous love affairs making all the papers, really Fergie? Anyway the fat princess is not fat anymore, so it couldn't possibly be her.

I love seeing FU (Frances Urquhart) in the Commons debates, following his rationalisa tions for staying in power. But it's shocking to see all the blackmailing going on in British life. Blackmail appears to be the second favourite indoor sport in the UK (next to wiretapping).

Marvin Kitman in 'Newsday', New York daily