When Steve Coogan set out to make a film about the discovery of King Richard III’s bones under a Leicester car park, he could hardly have imagined that he would find himself embroiled in a drama that could rival anything he put on screen.

The Alan Partridge actor was sued over his depiction of Richard Taylor, the University of Leicester’s former deputy registrar, and last week he and the production companies behind the film agreed to pay “substantial damages”.

It was the culmination of a long-running saga dating back to the time of events depicted in the 2022 film The Lost King, and strikes at the heart of numerous debates about the role of universities in society.

Taylor told 51�Թ� that when he first saw the film he felt “helpless”.

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His legal action claimed he had been portrayed as “misogynistic” and dismissive towards writer Phillipa Langley who raised thousands of pounds to fund the excavation after becoming fascinated with the story.

Langley, an “amateur”, is presented as the hero of the tale, who was sidelined by Taylor and the university as they sought to take credit for her achievement.

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If Coogan felt like backing down after the case was closed, he certainly hasn’t shown it. In a statement released by the actor he claimed that the settlement had only been reached because Langley was too ill to give evidence in the film’s defence. “It is [Langley’s] name that will be remembered in relation to the discovery of the lost king, long after Richard Taylor has faded into obscurity,” Coogan said.

In a later article for ,��the actor backed an inquiry into “Leicester’s behaviour during that tumultuous period”.

“One thing is for sure, had Philippa been on the payroll of the University of Leicester, you can bet your bottom dollar that she would have been front and centre of all the university’s announcements,” Coogan writes.

Taylor, who has always insisted the 2012 discovery that made headlines around the world was a result of collaboration between all parties, said the episode was “indicative of the disdain that some have for our universities”.

“Universities are either bastions of wokeness or money-grabbing ivory towers,” he said, arguing that the film feeds into “caricatures” and stereotypes surrounding higher education.�� “Whereas we know that the reality is very different.”

The settlement figure has not been disclosed but Taylor said although it was “not enough to retire on”, it’s “enough to buy a new pair of wellies to take the dog out with”. Coogan’s team will also have to cover his legal costs, which totalled about £2 million.��

He said he saw the outcome as a win not just for himself but for the academic community, especially colleagues at Leicester who had “poured their heart and soul into this project”, including lead archaeologist Richard Buckley and lead geneticist Turi King.

Despite its portrayal in the film, “The irony is I’ve never seen a project in my 30-odd-year career with as much collaboration as this”, Taylor said, “and rather than celebrate that collaboration between academics, the Richard III Society [of which Langley was a member] and others, it turned into this zero-sum scenario where the glory can only run one way.”

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Both Taylor and Coogan have invoked “David and Goliath” analogies in discussing the case, with both claiming to be David.

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David Williams, owner of Ivesley Consulting and a former university worker, said initially Langley was the David figure but that the narrative had shifted following the film’s release.

“The film made the mistake of using the presented character of Richard Taylor as an emblem for the university…the film loaded all of the narrative blame onto the Richard Taylor character, who, in the end, is an administrator. And universities aren’t run by administrators. They’re run by professors,” he said.

“It’s a drama that uses Taylor as a villain, partly because it’s Langley’s point of view, and partly because Langley and Coogan didn’t really understand how universities operate.”

Mike Pitts, former editor of British Archaeology magazine and author of “Digging for Richard III: The Search for the Lost King”, argued that the project was an exemplary case of public-academic collaboration.

“The Richard III project that was run by the University of Leicester was an outstanding archaeological project at all levels,” he said. “And it ought to be seen by the public as a very special collaboration between a university, its researchers, its administrators and a wider community of individuals…it’s sad that not everybody sees it that way,” Pitts said.

However, while Pitts agreed that “the film is an anti-science conspiracy tale that falsely depicts self-interested people defying the public interest” and “in that sense, it’s clearly anti-university”, he said he does not believe it takes aim at the higher education sector more widely.

“It’s more of a happenstance [that] the dig [is] being run by a university outfit, University of Leicester Archaeological Services, rather than a gripe with universities per se.”

Taylor said the project highlighted the role of both “intuition and emotion” – represented by Langley – and trusted expertise, represented by the university.

“It’s when we set them up as enemies of each other, as was the case in this film, that the problems start, because that leads to either a dismissal of human feelings or it leads to an anti-intellectualism and a hostility to expertise that leaves us all poorer as a consequence,” he said.

But he added: “This kind of dismissiveness of expertise is really quite troubling because, while this was just the search for Richard III, it was universities that came up with the Covid vaccine. It’s universities that are tackling dementia. It’s universities that are that are helping tackle inequality. We need to be as a society much more trusting and comfortable of expertise.”

Pathe Productions, Baby Cow Productions and Steve Coogan said in a joint statement: “As a distributor and producer recognised for bringing complex, real-life stories to audiences, we are deeply aware of the responsibility that comes with such portrayals and approach each project with care, integrity, and a commitment to authenticity.”

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juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com