THE LOST KING
Cert 12A★★★
In cinemas now
It was up there with the moment when Susan Boyle suddenly revealed she was an above-average singer on Britain’s Got Talent. But perhaps a little more historic.
In 2012, amateur historian Philippa Langley stood in a Leicester car park with a Channel 4 crew, a sniffy archaeologist and presenter Simon Farnaby to record what was shaping up to be a humorous documentary about an eccentric woman.
Philippa believed that a sixth sense – you could call it a “hunch” – had led her to the 1485 burial site of King Richard III which had eluded “proper” historians for centuries. Then, as they opened the very first trench, two bones poked out of the ground.
After a twisted spine was discovered, Farnaby suddenly felt horribly miscast. They should have gone for Jennie Bond.
Now, director Stephen Frears’s slight film has twisted this story into a British underdog drama.
Sally Hawkins is sales rep Philippa who suffers from ME, has been passed over for promotion, and has developed an unlikely kinship with the hunchbacked king whose villainous reputation was forged by Tudor propaganda and a Stratford-upon-avon playwright.
After being visited by the dead king’s ghost (Harry Lloyd), she hits the library to search for his grave, to the initial dismay of her loving husband (Steve Coogan).
When we get to the dig, Channel 4 and Farnaby are weirdly absent. Here, the underpowered villain (Lee Ingleby) works for the University of Leicester and initially ridicules Philippa before taking credit for the incredible discovery.
Staff and academics from the university claim that they treated Philippa a lot better than the film suggests and are frustrated with being portrayed as the villains of the piece. Which, ironically, is exactly what Philippa claims Shakespeare did to Richard.
It’s an interesting and quietly inspiring yarn but nothing here is as dramatic as that documentary’s nugget of pure TV gold.