4 February 2013

The King and the Loon


It has been confirmed that it really was Richard III under that car park in Leicester. This is a real momentous day; a definitive piece of history putting a 500 year old mystery to rest.

I was looking forward to Channel 4's hour and a half long documentary on the subject. I thought we'd get lashing of history and lashing of the science proving who this skeleton was. Instead we got the Philippa Langley show. She is a member of the Richard III Society, an eccentric bunch at times.

Now to give Philippa her dues she was the driving force behind the dig in the car park. It was thanks to her tenacity that the discoveries were made. My problem comes with the documentary. To me it felt a bit too light on fact and heavy on her “journey”. She came across as much too emotionally attached to Richard III, I mean obsessively so. It was quite unsettling.

I know that it's a bit rich for a writer to complain about someone obsessing over something. We are a notoriously compulsive breed. Philippa Langley, though, takes the biscuit and the packet, and the entire biscuit factory.

No comments:

Post a Comment