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6 hours ago
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Autumn is entering the home straight. Winter is coming. We are more than due, therefore, a piece of fantasy/folkloric tomfoolery set in the days of yore – which is further back than yesteryear and therefore more forgiving all round – stuffed with young actors trying out their talents, and old thesps keeping their alimony/next passion-project funded. Welcome, my friends, to this year’s most glorious offering: Robin Hood.
I really only need to tell you two things about it. One is that it stars Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham. I know. I know. We all wanted to live that long and we have! And two, there are no bad wigs in it! Because – there are no wigs at all! Some benevolent hand must have reached down and gently turned wardrobe away from the “long, stringy, Yore-hair” box that habitually damns these ventures, and instead commanded our hero and his men – and the occasional woman – to be merry without them.
This is enough to earn my undying devotion by itself, but there are more delights to come. In fact, it begins with the opening caption. Who does not enjoy a good opening caption? Ideally, one that tells us the makers have worked on the basis of no assumed knowledge whatsoever, and which sets out exactly where we are and what is happening without the need for a lot of dialogue and showing rather than telling?
Robin Hood’s is the finest example of the form I have yet seen: “Many years have passed since the Norman Conquest. England is ruled by Henry II. Norman laws and Christianity have been forced upon the Saxon people who must pay taxes and give deference to their new masters.” Before you have time to wonder if people “give” deference (isn’t it more usually “shown”?), and whether this is a sign of a slightly ramshackle vibe that will infuse every aspect of what’s shaping up to be a brilliantly bad show, there’s more: “Over time, more and more Saxon lands and estates are taken over by Norman laws as England is subjugated to its new rulers.” You may fleetingly wonder if there might be something wrong around the “subjugated” bit too, but there is another paragraph coming up about forest law and outlaws, and then we’re into the thing itself, so there’s no time to fret.
The show ticks all the boxes. Chainmailed Norman soldiers felled by honest Saxon arrows! Faerie boobs! Hugh of Locksley (Tom Mison) teaching his young son, Robin, archery! (“You have talent, my boy.”) Speeches about Saxon tenacity, the Locksley lands stolen by the earl-to-be of Huntingdon (Steven Waddington) and Mrs Locksley’s (Anastasia Griffith) dreams of Robin establishing himself at court ensue. Prepubescent Robin meets prepubescent Marian, daughter of Huntingdon, and feels a spiritual connection. Then the duo (played by Jack Patten and Lauren McQueen) both grow up hot and start feeling other connections. And the production gets round the fact that Robin is an innately unheroic name by calling him Rob. Hurrah!
Hugh is by now a royal forester – a prestigious job but humiliating for a Saxon – and is soon in trouble, thanks to Huntingdon and a treacherous fellow Saxon, for failing to lop off the hands of every poacher he catches. The ruthless Sheriff of Nottingham behaves ruthlessly and soon there has to be some emotional acting, which I’m sure everyone will get better at in time.
There’s also Sherriff Sean’s daughter, Priscilla (Lydia Peckham), who is a medieval nymphomaniac – frankly, a bit of a toil when you consider all the layers and lace they’re in. But, when not seducing guards, she is listening at doorways, and keeping track of all her father and Huntingdon’s cahooting, which I daresay will come in handy later. There is also the Spirit of the Greenwood (plus the faeries with the boobs) in a bit part, called upon to protect Robin by his mother on her deathbed. I bet that will be helpful later, too.
The drama does not quite move at the galloping pace you might expect from the genre (though it does give us more time to admire the CGI castle, manor house, surrounding outbuildings and village dwellings that abound, and I must say this is wig-money far better spent), so by the end of the first two episodes Robin – sorry, Rob – is still only just beginning to contemplate outright outlawry. We still have Connie Nielsen as Eleanor of Aquitaine to come, and the introductions of Little John, Guy of Gisborne, Friar Tuck and King John, too. What larks.
Look, by any objective measure Robin Hood is terrible. Subjectively? I couldn’t be having more fun and I suspect it will be the same for anyone who goes into it with the right attitude. If it’s not for you, fine. You can look forward to whatever great thing Sean Bean does next that this is paying for.
In the meantime – no wigs! Rejoice!
