Richard III would no doubt have been pleased by the stir he’s causing more than 500 years after his death. The news yesterday that the remains found beneath a Leicester car park were indeed those of the former English monarch was followed by a TV audience fit for a king as Channel 4 showed its documentary about the discovery, Richard III: The King in the Car Park.

According to overnight figures, the 90-minute film drew an average of 3.7m viewers between 9pm and 10:35pm on Channel 4 and+1 (a 15.8% audience share), with 4.3m tuning in at its peak.

Stephen Poliakoff's period drama Dancing on the Edge, which began its five-part run on BBC2 in the same slot, was watched by an average of just  2.3m (9.5%), including 134,000 on the BBC HD channel.

But even Richard III could not usurp comedy king Brendan O'Carroll, whose Mrs Brown's Boys at 9:30pm-10pm came to the end of its third run on BBC1 with 6.4m viewers (24.9%) – a series low but still by far the biggest audience for the slot that night.