Robin of Sherwood

Robin of Sherwood is a British television series, based on the legend of Robin Hood. Created by Richard Carpenter, it was produced by HTV in association with Goldcrest, and ran from 28 April 1984 to 28 June 1986 on the ITV network. In the United States it was shown on the premium cable TV channel Showtime and, later, on PBS. It was also syndicated in the early 1990s under the title Robin Hood.

The show starred Michael Praed and Jason Connery as two different incarnations of the title character. Unlike previous adaptations of the Robin Hood legend, Robin of Sherwood combined a gritty, authentic production design with elements of real-life history, 20th-century fiction, and pagan myth.

Robin of Sherwood has been described by historian Stephen Knight as "the most innovative and influential version of the myth in recent times". The series is also notable for its musical score by Clannad, which won a BAFTA award.

Production

Overview

Richard Carpenter had previously worked with producer Paul Knight on two other dramas involving historical adventure, Dick Turpin (1979-1982) and Smuggler (1981). For their next project, Carpenter and Knight decided to have their production company Gatetarn do an adaptation of the Robin Hood legend. With the aid of television producer Sidney Cole, Carpenter and Knight were able to create a production deal for the show. Goldcrest Films, the US network Showtime, HTV and Gatetarn agreed to fund the series. Carpenter drew on the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood and the 1973 film Wolfshead: The Legend of Robin Hood as inspirations for Robin of Sherwood. Robin of Sherwood was more expensive than Carpenter and Knight's previous series; each episode of Robin of Sherwood cost around £500,000 to film.

Michael Praed as Robin

Michael Praed played Robin of Loxley in the first two series. His fellow outlaws consisted of Will Scarlet (Ray Winstone), Little John (Clive Mantle), Friar Tuck (Phil Rose), Much (Peter Llewellyn Williams), the Saracen Nasir (Mark Ryan) and Lady Marian (Judi Trott). He is also assisted by Herne the Hunter (John Abineri). As in the legend, Robin is opposed by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Nickolas Grace) and Guy of Gisburne (Robert Addie), as well as the Sheriff's brother Abbot Hugo (Philip Jackson) (representing all the greedy abbots in the legends).

In the opening story, Robin Hood and the Sorcerer, Robin and Much fall foul of the Sheriff's henchman, Sir Guy of Gisburne, after Much takes Robin's bow and kills one of the King's deer, and are imprisoned in Nottingham Castle. After they manage to escape, Robin is declared a "wolfshead", an outlaw, by the authorities. Robin retreats to the woods, where he is encountered by the human vessel of the forest god Herne the Hunter, and gathers a band of fellow outlaws and rebels to fight back against the Sheriff's authority.

Jason Connery as Robin

At the end of the second series, Robin of Loxley is killed. Robert of Huntingdon (played by Jason Connery) replaces him as the new Robin Hood. The third series had the same episode count as the first two combined, so each incarnation of Robin featured in the same number of episodes.

At the conclusion of Series Three, Goldcrest was forced to pull out of the venture, due to a downturn in the fortunes of their film arm. Goldcrest had been responsible for critical and commercial hits such as Chariots of Fire (1981) and Gandhi (1982) earlier in the 1980s, but had hit a lean period with such films as Revolution (1985) and Absolute Beginners (1986). The series was expensive to produce; HTV could not afford to finance it alone, and so Robin of Sherwood came to an unexpected end. Despite the huge popularity of the series, Goldcrest's financial difficulties due to its cinematic investments, prevented further production.

During the course of the third series, the new Robin discovers that he is the half-brother of his nemesis Guy of Gisburne (an idea suggested to Carpenter by the fact that both actors had blond hair). Carpenter had planned to have Guy discover this.

Wickham, an important village in the series where the lover (Meg) of Little John lived.
Cromm Cruac, phantom village created by Gulnar (named after the Irish deity Cromm Cruac and seen only in the episode of the same name).
Elsdon, mentioned in the episode The Witch of Elsdon.
Uffcombe, village attacked by Hounds of Lucifer.

Castles and cities

Nottingham Castle – filmed at several other locations.
Castle of Belleme
Castle of Lord Owen (Clun Castle) – filmed at Kidwelly Castle in Wales (exterior).
Castle of Gwydion – filmed at several other locations.
Castle of Huntingdon, childhood home of the second Robin – filmed at several other locations.
Leaford
Caerleon – filmed at several other locations.

Abbeys

Warren – filmed at several other locations.
Thornton – filmed at several other locations.
Ravenscar – filmed at several other locations.
Croxden – filmed at several other locations.
Kirklees – filmed at several other locations.
Grimstone – filmed at several other locations.
Halstead – filmed elsewhere.

Landscape

Sherwood Forest – filmed at several other locations, Greyfield Wood in Somerset was used for scenes by the famous waterfall with lots of dry ice.
Tor of last stand of first Robin – filmed near Burrington Camp.

Music

The music for Robin of Sherwood was composed and performed by Irish folk group Clannad. The show's original soundtrack, Legend, was released in 1984 and won the BAFTA award for Best Original Television Music.

Reviewing Robin of Sherwood for SFX magazine, Jayne Nelson stated that "this incarnation of England's most famous outlaw will probably never be bettered". Nelson praised the show's "excellent writing, moody cinematography and haunting score".

...There's also a noticeable drop-off in the quality of the scripts from the first two series to the third. Part of the problem is just how many variations on the theme of keeping out of the clutches of the Sheriff of Nottingham, embarrassing his lackey Sir Guy of Gisburne, and robbing from the rich to feed the poor can there be?

Controversy

ITV aired Robin of Sherwood during an early-evening television slot, and promoted the programme as being for a family audience. Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers and Listeners' Association criticised Robin of Sherwood as being unsuitable for children (as the organisation previously did with Doctor Who). The Guinness Book of Classic British TV defended Robin of Sherwood, stating that the show's "swordplay was strictly zero blood" and that the supernatural elements were the result of Carpenter's "love for the subject matter". to September 1986 (issue 39) It was written by Angus Allan, and illustrated mainly by Mike Noble, with some issues illustrated by Arthur Ranson and Phil Gascoine; colours were by Arthur Ranson. released the series in a single Region B Blu-ray set, entitled Robin of Sherwood: Michael Praed (the 3-Disc Blu-ray and DVD bonus disc), on 15 November 2010. In the US and Canada, the first and second series were released on 7 June 2011 by Acorn Media as Robin of Sherwood: Set 1.

Network DVD released Blu-ray set, entitled Robin of Sherwood: Jason Connery, on 31 October 2011.

Bonus features

On The Complete Collection DVD set, there are "seventeen hours of special features", including fourteen commentary tracks, a documentary on the folk group Clannad creating the score for the series, outtakes, bonus footage, a behind the scenes documentary, four documentaries that look back on the making of the show with former cast and crew, and other behind the scenes footage too.

Audio plays and audio books

By July 2015, Bafflegab Productions, the producers of the audio play/comic book series The Scarifyers, and co-producer Barnaby Eaton-Jones were adapting a feature-length script entitled Robin of Sherwood: The Knights Of The Apocalypse, written by Richard Carpenter before his death in 2012. Jason Connery, Judi Trott, Ray Winstone, Clive Mantle, Mark Ryan, Phil Rose, Philip Jackson, and Nickolas Grace (Robert of Huntingdon, Lady Marion, Will Scarlet, Little John, Nasir, Friar Tuck, Abbot Hugo, and the Sheriff of Nottingham, respectively) all agreed to reprise their roles for the project, with Daniel Abineri taking the role of Herne in place of his father, John Abineri, who died in 2000. That December, Barnaby Eaton-Jones took over as sole producer of the audio play, with Spiteful Puppet (the award-winning audio company who produced 'Hood') as executive producers, as approved by ITV Studios and Carpenter's estate. After beginning its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in September, the production set a goal of £10,000 within 30 days to cover production costs; due to enthusiastic fan support, however, the goal was reached in just under 24 hours. The audio play was released in 2016, with proceeds going to the Sherwood Forest Trust and the British Red Cross.

The success of the play led to Spiteful Puppet sporadically producing and releasing more full-cast dramas and single-narrator audiobooks, starting in December 2017. Some of these have also been made available through Audible. From 2024 the series has continued with CD releases from AUK Studios (which had purchased Spiteful Puppet), Chinbeard Books and Oak Tree Books.

{| class="wikitable"

!Title

!Author

!Narrator

!Release date

!Release

!Chronology

|"The Knights of the Apocalypse"

|Richard Carpenter

|Full cast

|30 June 2016

|Single

|Set after "The Time of the Wolf" and "What Was Lost".

|"Mathilda's Legacy"

|Jennifer Ash

|Michael Craig

|8 December 2017

|Single

|Set before "Robin Hood and the Sorcerer".

|"The Templars' Promise"

|Iain Meadows

|Phil Rose

|8 December 2017

|Single

|Set after "Seven Poor Knights from Acre".

|"The Blood that Binds"

|Iain Meadows

|Nickolas Grace

|8 December 2017

|Single

|Set after "The Cross of St. Ciricus"; serves as a prequel to "The Knights of the Apocalypse".

|"The Waterford Boy"

|Jennifer Ash

|Judi Trott

|8 December 2017

|Single

|Set before "The Time of the Wolf".

|"Sanctuary"

|Paul Birch

|Michael Praed & Nickolas Grace

|22 December 2017

|Single

|Set during series one, after "Robin Hood and the Sorcerer".

|"The Red Lord"

|Paul Kane

|Ian Ogilvy

|11 May 2018

|Single

|Set after "Adam Bell".

|"The Baron's Daughter"

|Jennifer Ash

|Peter Hutchinson

|31 October 2018

|Single

|Set during series one, after "Alan A Dale".

|"The Trial of John Little"

|Tony Lee

|Full cast

|10 December 2018

|Originally part of "A New Adventure" CD box set.

| Set during series two.

|"King of Sherwood"

|Paul Birch & Barnaby Eaton-Jones

|Full cast

|10 December 2018

|Originally part of "A New Adventure" CD box set.

|Set during series two.

|"The Meeting Place"

|Jennifer Ash (from a story by Barnaby Eaton-Jones)

|Full cast

|10 December 2018

|Originally part of "A New Adventure" CD box set.

|Set during series three.

|"What Was Lost"

|Iain Meadows

|Jason Connery

|10 December 2018

|Originally part of "A New Adventure" CD box set.

|Set after "The Time of the Wolf" and before "The Knights of the Apocalypse".

|"Fitzwarren's Well"

|Jennifer Ash

|Judi Trott

|1 July 2020

|Single

|Set during series three, between "Rutterkin" and "The Time of the Wolf".

|"De Giscard's Dilemma"

|Jennifer Ash

|Robert Daws & Barnaby Eaton-Jones

|2 May 2024