did not deserve his evil reputation, yet battles waged in his name have raged on long after his death more than five centuries ago at the Battle of Bosworth. Now, on the eve of the premiere of a starry British film about the amazing discovery of his remains under a Leicester car park, the great “lost king” of England is again the subject of conflict.
“We are all so surprised that the filmmakers didn’t check with us. I showed their location scout around and offered to explain, as did the university, but no one took us up.” Sally Hawkins as Philippa Langley, the leading ‘Ricardian’ and hero of the film, with Steve Coogan, who co-wrote the screenplay and plays Langley’s husband.at the Toronto film festival next month, the monarch is once again caught up in controversy. A quirky drama, it is co-written by Steve Coogan, who also stars as the husband of Philippa Langley, the woman behind the campaign to look for Richard Plantagenet under the asphalt.
King, who worked on the dig with the renowned lead archaeologist Richard Buckley, said Langley was inspirational but did not have the expertise to lead them. “Everyone brought something to the table, that was what was so nice,” she said. “We tried to keep Philippa involved all the time. Why wouldn’t we? We bent over backwards, in fact.”