by Nadine Whitney
Phillipa Langley (OBE) is an author, historian, documentary maker, and her story about finding the final resting place of Richard III is now the basis of the film The Lost King, starring Sally Hawkins, Steve Coogan, and Harry Lloyd, directed by Stephen Frears.
Was I right in thinking that I spotted you as a cameo in The Lost King?
“Ah, yeah, you did. In the church for the re-burial. Well spotted. It was very quick.”
The film came into development because Steve Coogan had seen the documentary Richard III: King in the Car Park, and then started talking to you. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
“Yeah, absolutely. Steve invited me for lunch, and it was the 23rd of April 2014. It was actually St. George’s Day, and he said he was very interested in the search for Richard III. That was quite unusual. Because I thought, really? Steve Coogan and Richard III, the Medieval King? But yeah, it was a really, really interesting meeting, because I thought he’d be a bit larky and a bit jokey. And he wasn’t. He was very serious, very knowledgeable, and it became a very long lunch, because his questions were so in depth and almost investigative, if you like. And I just thought, ‘wow, he really gets this story and he’s really interested in it’. Both my story and Richard III’s. He was fascinated by both.”
Well, your personal story is incredibly important. One aspect I picked up on is the fact that you have ME, which is deeply difficult to deal with. Your search was well over seven years. How did you cope with doing all the work and dealing with your disability?
“It was really tough. I had to travel to Leicester (from Edinburgh) to do whatever it is I had to do. I had to sleep bank for about a week beforehand, before I’d get on the train to go. And then I’d have enough energy to do what I needed to do, and then get back on the train and pretty much sleep all the way home, and then sleep for two or three days when I got home, in order to get over that sort of needing that energy, and that burst of energy, and not having brain fog and trying to be ‘on’, so that I could take in everything and absorb everything. I think I was really lucky in that respect because John (played in the film by Steve Coogan), my ex-husband, my partner, he was really supportive, and he would take up some of the slack. Because we had two children, the two boys, and he would help me to do that. But I had to plan. I couldn’t really do the thing where someone says, ‘right, we need you in Leicester tomorrow’. I couldn’t do that. I always had to make sure in advance.”
John is an interesting character in the film, because he starts off not being the most supportive person. But by the end of it, he’s your champion.
“Yeah, for sure. And do you know, John, at the very, very beginning, he was a little bit sort of what? He was like that, but he did quickly come on board, because I think he could see how important it was to me. I would share some of the research with him and some of the things that I was doing, and he felt that I needed to do this and to try and see if I could make it happen. So that was huge for me, having his support, because it really did allow me, give me that freedom, if you like, to get on and do what I needed to do. I think without that support, I probably would’ve given up. Because there was one point in trying to get it off the ground, when my funding was pulled by Leicestershire Promotions, and I was left fighting to try and get funding in again, or else it would’ve all been completely cancelled.
“I did nearly give up at that point. I said to John, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I’m exhausted.
It’s just not meant to be. I’ve just got to leave it now’. And it was John who said to me, ‘Look, you’ve done 99% of the work, you’re nearly there. And it’s always darkest before the dawn. Just don’t give up. Just give it one more try’.
“And that’s when I did. That’s when we did the international appeal, and so many people from around the world saved the Search for the King, including a great many Australians, which still blows my mind. People from the other side of the world gave money to a stranger me in order to go and search for a king under a carpark.”
Do you think that some of the hurdles that you were encountering had to do with not only the fact that you weren’t a professional academic, but also to do with you being a woman?
“Yeah, for sure. At times it certainly was, because it was 2011, 2012, 2013. They were very different days then. I wasn’t a doctor, or a professor and I was a woman, and I think also because I held revisionist views about Richard III. To have revisionist views about Richard then, wasn’t as popular as it is now. If you put those three things together, there was some people in Leicester who did look at me as a bit of an oddity. But luckily, the landowner, Leicester City Council, was so supportive and really brilliant, and backed the project a hundred percent. Without them, well, it wouldn’t have happened.”
How does it feel to be portrayed by one of Britain’s greatest actors?
“Oh, yeah. Sally Hawkins. I mean, when they told me that Sally was interested, that was a huge moment for me. To have an actor of that calibre telling my story, and interested in my story, and wanting to bring it to life… I remember that moment very clearly, and I was pretty much ‘Peel me off the floor!’”
Intuition played a large part in your search and finding Richard in the carpark. But the way that the film weaves that intuition in is through your character seeing Richard played by Harry Lloyd. Because The Lost King is condensing more than seven years of research into a short period of time, do you think that the film used those Harry Lloyd as Richard III visions to explain a lot of what was going on?
“Yeah, they did. And I remember when Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope [who wrote the screenplay] came to me and said, ‘We’re trying to find our way into this film and we think we have to have Richard in it so that people can really understand your journey, but also who he was and what you were going in search of’.
“When they explained it to me, I thought that absolutely makes sense, because one of the things that they’d asked me, when they were doing their research, was ‘How did you do your research? How did you get into it?’ I showed them lots of my research, and I explained that where things I couldn’t understand, you ask research questions in your head. You say ‘Okay, so how did that happen? And then how did that get to that?’ It was that discussion that they put and said, ‘Well, look, if she’s asking these questions, why not have Richard there? He’s not really there. It’s her subconscious. But she’s got a foil to talk to’.
“The first time I saw the film, I thought it really does work. I could see it in the script, and it really worked on the page, but I think by the time it came to the screen, I really liked what they’d done with it.”
Harry Lloyd is a very charming Richard.
“He’s definitely more the historical Richard rather than Shakespeare’s Richard.”
You are now looking for Henry I. You’re also trying to solve the seemingly insoluble mystery of the Missing Princes. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
“Yeah, well Henry I is in Reading, and I got the Hidden Abbey project underway, really, for the people of Reading, because they’d seen what had happened in Leicester, and they wanted to find out about their own king, Henry I. We’re waiting for the prison in Reading to be sold, because it looks like the east end of the Abbey and Henry’s grave is in that area. So that’s sort of on hold, waiting for the Ministry of Justice to sell the prison. I hope that will begin for Reading shortly. That’s a really exciting one.
“But I think for me, the new research initiative that I launched after Richard was buried is as you said, the Missing Princes project. And it is about really deeply, forensically investigating for the first time what happened to these two boys, the so-called Princes in the Tower who were said to have disappeared in the summer of 1483. And these were Richard’s nephews, the sons of his brother, Edward IV. I’m about to publish the five-year report on the Missing Princes project, and to announce some very, very exciting discoveries. And that’s going to be announced next year.”
Perhaps there will be a film about that?
“I think there might be a television documentary.”
People will look forward to it. Look at the popularity of Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. [In which a detective solves the mystery of The Princes while confined to his hospital bed].
“Do you know that is still a book that’s never been out of print? Quite remarkable, isn’t it? It’s up there in the top classics of all time and never out of print.”
The Lost King is in cinemas Boxing Day.
More information about Philippa Langley can be found on her website.