Should Steve Coogan be worried about being sued over Richard III?

Now is the winter of our discontent,” says Richard the Third in the Shakespeare play of that name.

So discontented was another Richard – that would be the university administrator Richard Taylor – about a film concerning that monarch, that he cried “a lawyer, a lawyer, my kingdom for a lawyer”.

I jest, of course: but there’s a serious side to this tragedy, A very serious side.

Taylor found a lawyer – and is now seeking damages from Steve Coogan and some of the other makers of The Lost King.

Coogan’s film – he co-wrote the script, took a role and is one of the producers – concerns the ultimately successful search for the remains of the last of the Plantagenet rulers, led by amateur historian Philippa Langley.

It’s fair to say that the character of Richard Taylor – played by Lee Ingleby – does not come out of it well. While he doesn’t get a lot of screen time, he still serves as its chief baddie. Taylor’s barrister has argued that he is presented as “dismissive, patronising and misogynistic”, as a “devious, weasel-like person” and a “suited bean counter” – which sounds like something the Bard himself may well have said.

In the real world, Taylor and the university have fiercely denied that they ever sought to sideline Langley in the way the film suggests they did. For her part, Langley – who was closely involved with the production – has defended its view of events.

According to Coogan, the university “played this quite badly”. “Had they, at the start, been generous towards Philippa, and elevated her to the front and centre position, which is where she deserves to be, this film wouldn’t have been necessary,” he told the BBC’s Today programme, promoting the film’s release in 2022.

The makers have also sought to argue that this is “is a feature film, not a documentary”. At the start, there is that crucial line: “based on a true story” – with an emphasis on the word “based”. Although it then says it is “her story” (referring to Langley)... an obvious play on the word “history”.

Dramatisations of real world events might be classed as “fiction”, but as this affair shows, they can still have a powerful, real world impact. One only needs to look at what has occurred since ITV screened Mr Bates vs the Post Office, starring Toby Jones. The drama pushed the Post Office scandal to the front pages, led to questions in the House of Commons and forced the government to act on a grotesque injustice that had been allowed to fester for far too long.

The Lost King, however, had nowhere near the same cultural clout. It was fairly well received by critics (77 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (92 per cent rating). But its global gross (per Box Office Mojo) was a modest $4.5m (£3.6m) – with the lion’s share coming from its home market.

It is an enjoyable film and a fascinating story, but I doubt there are many who, upon meeting Taylor for the first time, would say: “wait, you mean you’re that Richard Taylor?” The media has also given ample space to his and the University of Leicester’s side of the story. And the film doesn’t appear to have harmed his career. These days, he is the chief operating officer of Loughborough University.

But of course, that doesn’t matter when it comes to Britain’s stifling libel law, which has regularly been used for far more malign purposes than an attempt to address a film’s perceived unfairness. Oligarchs have indulged in libel tourism, using the UK’s permissive courts in an attempt to resolve their spats. More seriously, the same law has been used to frustrate serious investigative journalism, even to shelter criminals from exposure. You can start with Jimmy Saville.

If Langley was indeed overlooked and denied her dues at the time of the discovery of King Richard’s remains in a Leicester car park, as the film claims, that has since been corrected. She has a place in history, an MBE, has written a book, produced documentaries and, of course, there is The Lost King.

She and her fellow Ricardians have also helped to restore their hero’s reputation, traduced by the bard. The film leading to a libel suit is richly ironic, given that it is partly about the correction of what many feel is the play’s historical libel. My late father was a paid-up member of the Richard III Society. My brother is actually named after King Richard, although that is partly because my mother vetoed his first choice (William).

Whether Taylor has been unjustly treated along the way will now be for the courts to decide. I might consider this to be an overreaction to a few minutes on screen, but then I’ve never been portrayed as a movie villain, which is a lot to live down.

Coogan and his partners, who now find themselves in the dock, may care to reflect on the fact that controversy is never a bad thing when you’re trying to get people’s eyes on your product. The fuss mightn’t have pushed their film to the top of the box office charts, but the latest kerfuffle could give it a second wind in the streaming world, which would of course mean still more people seeing its unflattering depiction of Taylor.

Lovers of irony will find a lot of it in this affair.