A Voice for King Richard III

Imagine if you could see and hear King Richard III speaking his own words. Imagine if you could see him thinking, breathing and effectively brought back to “life”.

Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485 at the age of 32. He was killed at the Battle of Bosworth (22 August 1485). He was the last King of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth was the penultimate battle in the Wars of the Roses and ushered in the Tudor dynasty.

The remains of Richard III were discovered in 2012 under a car park in Leicester by Philippa Langley M.B.E. through her Looking For Richard Project. Philippa’s search for the King’s grave was the subject of the award-winning TV documentary: Richard III: The King in the Car Park. The remains of King Richard were identified using a range of scientific disciplines including DNA analysis.

What started for Yvonne Morley-Chisholm, voice teacher and vocal coach, over ten years ago as an after-dinner entertainment to compare Shakespeare’s Richard III with what we know of the real man, developed quickly into a research project with a unique focus: to explore the possibility of recreating a literal voice for a long-dead King. Experts from various fields helped put the pieces of a complex puzzle together.