RHLSTP | Richard Herring

David Mitchell

29 September 2023

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Unruly

Richard chats with writer, comedian and actor David Mitchell about his funny and diverting book about English monarchs, Unruly. Are the royal family just the country's most successful thugs? How did they convince people to believe in their divine right to rule? Why would they want the job anyway, when it results in so much misery? Is the White Ship tragedy the biggest Sliding Doors moment in English history or would the world (and Anne) have been been better if Anne Boleyn had been prepared to put out? What happened to Simon de Montford's testicles and was that enough of a reason to name a University after him? And how did they remember the order of a rainbow before Richard of York and who was Richard of York anyway and might it have been Richard Herring? And why is there quite so much about James Bond in a book that finishes with the reign of Elizabeth I?