Steve Coogan faces a libel claim that he unfairly portrayed a university official as “devious” and “weasel-like” in a film about the discovery of Richard III’s remains, the High Court was told.
The defamation claim centres on The Lost King, a 2022 film starring Coogan, which tells the story of Philippa Langley, a woman who became obsessed with finding the Plantagenet king’s resting place.
They were discovered beneath a Leicester car park in 2012, more than 500 years after his death.
Richard Taylor, the former deputy registrar of the University of Leicester, is suing Coogan, who produced and wrote the film, as well as his production company Baby Cow and Pathe Productions over his portrayal.
At a hearing in the High Court, which the actor did not attend, William Bennett KC, representing Taylor, said that the university administrator had been depicted as “dismissive, patronising and misogynistic” towards Langley.
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In written submissions to Judge Jaron Lewis, Bennett said that in the film Langley was “portrayed as the gutsy underdog heroine struggling against opposition and the claimant as the arrogant villain”.
The barrister added that in the film, the Taylor character “not only takes steps to make sure that people do not know about her role but takes the credit, which was rightfully hers, for himself and the university”.
Taylor, who is now chief operating officer at Loughborough University, was also shown as a “devious, weasel-like person” and a “suited bean-counter”, said Bennett.
The barrister added that Taylor was portrayed as “mocking” Richard III’s disability and “linking physical deformity with wickedness or moral failings”.
Coogan and the two production companies are defending the claim.
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Representing the actor and the companies, Andrew Caldecott KC told the judge that the production had been “a feature film, not a documentary”.
He argued that it would “be clear to the ordinary reasonable viewer that the film is not a documentary, it is a dramatisation of events. The concept of fictional films based on real events is not a new one”.
Caldecott also denied that Taylor was depicted as being sexist or misogynist, adding that the character in the film was concerned about Langley’s “amateur status and lack of historical expertise, and not her gender”.
He acknowledged that the film was “clearly strongly critical” of Taylor and the university for sidelining Langley at the dig and after the discovery of the body and not giving her sufficient credit, and that his “clear motive is to exploit the discovery to further the university’s commercial interests”.
However, Caldecott said that “no reasonable viewer would conclude that his motive was sexism or misogynism”.
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The barrister also told the court that Taylor was not portrayed as mocking the king’s disability “and certainly not mocking disabled people in general”.
The judge will give a ruling on preliminary issues in the claim at a later date.
