Imagine if we could hear one of the most fascinating figures from history speak again.
In this special film, Richard III expert Matthew Lewis follows a remarkable project to give Richard III back his voice and to hear and see him speak again. Forget the words put into his mouth by Shakespeare and interpreted by actors like Laurence Olivier, this is as close as we can get to how Richard spoke his own words over 500 years ago.
History Hit has had special access to the detailed investigation pioneered by voice coach Yvonne Morley-Chisholm. Facial reconstruction specialist Professor Caroline Wilkinson and her team at FaceLab have painstakingly recreated Richard's face, using the primary evidence of his skull, rediscovered in 2012. The computer model is is being reanimated to speak Richard's own words. To get these words right Yvonne has brought in top experts from many fields, including historic speech, regional pronunciation, anatomy, theatre, history, psychology and even dentistry. Yvonne and her team are getting as close as possible to the real Richard III.
If you want to find out even more about this incredible story, listen to Yvonne, David, Caroline and Thomas in conversation with History Hit Host Matt Lewis' in depth discussion on 'Gone Medieval' (ad free for all our subscribers) - https://podfollow.com/gone-medieval/view
Find out more about this fascinating project and those involved:
- https://avoiceforrichard.co.uk/
-https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/forensic-research-institute/related-research-groups/face-lab
- https://www.davidcrystal.com/GBR/David-Crystal
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