Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A monster who died at the hands of the Tudor dynasty and whose reputation was further sullied by a playwright from Stratford in the greatest piece of political spin or a misunderstood, kind and benevolent man who was wrongly usurped by Henry VII. Whatever the point or stance you take on it there was something compelling about the programme Richard III: The King in the Car Park and the woman who it seems had spent most of her life trying to find the man that history had demonised.

With the help of the University of Leicester, Philippa Langley, a member of the Richard III Society, managed to get permission of Leicester Social Services to dig up their car park in the hope of finding the last English King to die in battle 527 years ago but since meeting his bloody end at the Battle of Bosworth had rested, covered in concrete, surrounded by no pomp or ceremony and blighted to the end.

In an concerted effort to make Channel 4’s Time Team look redundant and with the help of a mechanical digger, the team struck lucky first time as the remains of a body with a spinal defect were found and from that point the emotions that were already high in Ms. Langley, run over and started to see a glimmer of what would could be. The image of hunting for a needle in a garage full  of needles comes to mind.

Despite growing evidence, there could always be the moment in which the whole thing could be over and the body to be found to be a rather unfortunate monk dug up from his eternal resting place. However D.N.A. saved the day and Ms. Langley’s blushes and as the news was confirmed yesterday in a press conference, the body the team found in a car park was proved to be that of the man Shakespeare and the Tudor’s had managed to make one of England’s most reviled and most poked fun at Kings.

A compelling programme which could have gone either way.

Ian D. Hall