A couple of years ago, the gently charming Brit pic The Dig told the “true-life” story of autodidactic archaeologist Basil Brown (played with low-key aplomb by Ralph Fiennes) being sidelined from the unearthing of the Sutton Hoo treasures by a snobby establishment attempting to take credit for his work. That winning formula is revisited in this latest seriocomic drama from the team behind 2013’s Oscar-nominated Philomena: director Stephen Frears, writer Jeff Pope and writer-actor Steve Coogan. In The Lost King, it’s Sally Hawkins’s amateur historian-sleuth Philippa Langley who gets to butt heads with the archaeological establishment as she pursues her dream to find the mortal remains of the much-maligned King Richard III.
“Sent before my time into this breathing world,” is how Shakespeare’s Richard famously describes himself, “scarce half made up, and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me.” These are words that pierce Philippa’s troubled heart, her ME having left her feeling shunned and ridiculed, her job at risk. Meanwhile at home, her marriage to John (Steve Coogan) has collapsed, yet the two remain tetchily close, sharing the care of their young sons.
