Well this sounds like it should be good! Steve Coogan has announced that he is set to star in a movie about the discovery of Richard III’s remains here in Leicester.
Steve wrote The Lost King about how amateur historian Phillipa Langley spent years researching the last Plantagenet monarch before discovering his body. Now the Alan Partridge star will play Phillipa Langley’s husband in the film, which is set to start shooting next year.
Collaborating on the script is Jeff Pope, who previously work with Coogan on their Oscar-nominated screenplay for Philomena.
Philomena director Stephen Frears is also rumoured to be working on the feature. Drawing parallels between that film, which told the story of an Irish mother searching for the son taken away from her as a toddler, and Langley’s dogged pursuit of her belief that Richard III was buried in the now-demolished Greyfriars Abbey. Coogan remarked that “this Richard film is about the amateur versus the Establishment, and intuition versus academia”.
The movie was initially set to film this year but was postponed because of coronavirus and the project comes alongside possible plans for a live tour as Partridge and a possible return to the Edinburgh Fringe.