LOOKING FOR RICHARD

THE LOST KING Sally Hawkins has a hunch there’s a king buried in a car park in Stephen Frears’ dramatisation of Richard III’s rediscovery.

- NEIL SMITH

 I loathe Julian Fellowes,” declares Steve Coogan with a virulence that catches Teasers unawares. “The things he produces are love letters to the establishment, which makes me feel slightly nauseous.” Given their respective political persuasions (Coogan is a staunch and public supporter of the Labour Party, while Baron Fellowes of West Stafford sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords), a level of antipathy is maybe to be expected.

In Coogan’s case, however, this extends to the Downton Abbey creator’s creative milieu: a world of inherited wealth and hereditary privilege that can’t help but irk the satirical brain that gave us Alan Partridge.

Which explains why he and writing partner Jeff Pope were drawn to the story of Philippa Langley, an amateur historian and Richard III enthusiast who instigated the search which resulted in his remains being discovered in 2012. Convinced the late king could be found beneath a council car park in Leicester, Langley defied expert opinion and the scepticism of academics and followed her gut. Her intuition led to the exhumation and 2015 reburial of England’s last Plantagenet ruler. It also bolstered endeavours to redeem the reputation of a monarch who, thanks in no small part to Shakespeare’s “history” play, has been vilified relentlessly for more than 400 years.