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. A video game adaptation, Robin of Sherwood: The Touchstones of Rhiannon, was released in 1985. The series attained cult status worldwide.
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. Carpenter also used the books Robin Hood by the historian J. C. Holt and The God of the Witches by the folklorist Margaret Murray as sources for the program. 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. Filming on Robin of Sherwood began in 1983. The show premiered in 1984, on ITV in the UK and on Showtime in the United States. There were three series, composed of a two-hour opening episode and 24 one-hour long episodes, although the pilot is sometimes screened as two one-hour episodes. The episodes comprising "The Swords of Wayland" were transmitted as one episode in the UK on their original screening, on a bank holiday weekend in 1985. The show was shot on film and almost entirely on location, mostly in the northeast and southwest of England; HTV West in Bristol was the base of operations, and most of the filming was done in and around Bristol and its surrounding counties. Primary locations were the Blaise Castle Estate and Vassells Park. Some of the forest scenes were shot near Bradford-on-Avon.
Robin of Sherwood is one of the most influential treatments of the core Robin Hood legend since the classic film The Adventures of Robin Hood. It featured a realistic period setting and introduced the character of a Saracen outlaw. Carpenter also added fantasy elements to the story, which had not appeared in previous TV versions of the legend. These included Robin's supernatural mentor Herne the Hunter, Robin's magic sword Albion, and appearances by black magicians and demons.
Michael Praed played Robin of Loxley in the first two series. His 'Merry Men' 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 and are imprisoned in Nottingham Castle. They manage to escape: as a result of this action, Robin is declared a "wolfshead", an outlaw, by the authorities. Robin retreats to the woods and gathers a team of fellow rebels to fight back against the Sheriff's authority.
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. Goldcrest invested £1,289,000 in the first six episodes, £1,944,000 in the next seven and £4,035,000 in the next twelve. 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. This particular story arc was never resolved, as the show's intended fourth (and final) series was never made. Series 4 would have also featured the return of Baron de Belleme. The sudden cancellation also broke off Robin and Marion's intended marriage and left Marion at Halstead Abbey as a novice. Carpenter later said that, if he had known the third season would be last, he would have married Robin and Marion.
After the series ended, Carpenter and Knight tried several times to revive the show. First, Knight attempted to gain funding from US producers for a fourth season, but was unsuccessful. Carpenter then wrote a script for a feature film adaptation of the series, and attempted to gather funding. Carpenter said in a 1990 interview that the film was intended to star the TV series' regular cast, with a new actor playing Robin if Connery was unavailable. Carpenter also said that the film would not be an adaptation of the unmade fourth season, but "a story on its own". The appearance of two Robin Hood films in 1991 (Robin Hood and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) meant that Carpenter and Knight could not interest potential producers in a third Robin Hood film. Coincidently, Jason Connery's father Sean Connery cameoed as King Richard in the second film.
Robin of Sherwood takes place in England in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, during the reigns of the Angevin kings Richard I and John, the usual setting of Robin Hood stories. Robin Hood and the Sorcerer, which opens Series One, begins in 1180, then flashes forward fifteen years. In the final episode of Series One, however, King Richard's return to England following his capture and ransom is depicted, which in actuality occurred in 1194. The Series Two episode "The Prophecy" is set in the year 1199, when Prince John becomes King of England. In the Series Three episode "The Time of the Wolf", the Sheriff dictates a legal document dated for the year 1211, and the plot of the episode involves King John raising an army to fight Llywelyn of Wales, an event which, in actual history, took place that same year.
In repeats, episodes have frequently been broadcast out of order, and alternative orders have been suggested. The original running order creates a number of continuity errors, the most notable being Marian's father being referred to as being dead in "The Swords of Wayland" even though he was discovered to be alive in "The Prophecy" and appears in later episodes.
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.
Three singles were released from the album: the theme-tune "Robin (The Hooded Man)", "Now is Here" and "Scarlet Inside". An EP contained a remix of "Robin (The Hooded Man)" from the third series.
While not all of the show's music is found on the Legend album, some additional pieces can be found on Clannad's albums Macalla (released in 1986) and Clannad: Live in Concert, 1996 (released in 2005). In November 2003, Clannad revealed on their official web site that "there were several other pieces of music recorded for the third series of Robin of Sherwood that were not included on the Legend album". On 25 October 2024 Clannad released the Legend Extended 40th Anniversary edition includes eleven previously unreleased tracks taken from the classic TV series. It features eleven previously unreleased tracks. This hopefully completes all the missing tracks. </ref>
A review at rpg.net, written in 2003, opines:
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". Nelson called "The Greatest Enemy" the best episode of the show, followed by "The Swords of Wayland" and "The Sheriff of Nottingham".
Richard Marcus, writing on blogcritics.org, wrote in 2008:
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). Whitehouse claimed that the show depicted "extensive violence", objected to the depiction of Satanic villains in "The Swords of Wayland", and also criticised the apparent "resurrection" of Robin in "The Greatest Enemy" as being disrespectful to Christianity. Carpenter later met Whitehouse for a public debate, and introduced himself to her and the audience by saying "I'm Richard Carpenter, and I'm a professional writer. And you're a professional... what?" 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".
A comic strip based on Robin of Sherwood ran in Look-in magazine from April 1984 (issue 18) 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. The first 6 stories (32 issues) were in full colour, and the remainder were in black and white, with the exception of the 19th story which marked the change of character from Michael Praed's Robin to Jason Connery's.
In 2022, Rebellion, Chinbeard Books and Spiteful Puppet jointly published "Robin of Sherwood: The Complete Look-In Comics", which collected all of the strips. This was a limited-edition run.
In the US and Canada, the first and second series have been released by Acorn Media in a five DVD set. A second set, containing the complete third series was released on 9 October 2007.
Network DVD 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.
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.
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 Richard 'Kip' 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 announcing a set of four further 'Robin of Sherwood' plays for 2017, two featuring Jason Connery and two featuring Michael Praed. This release was later pushed back to 2018 but a series of enhanced audiobooks was announced, with the first four being released in December 2017.
In May 2024 AUK Studios (which had purchased Spiteful Puppet), Chinbeard Books and Oak Tree Books released a new project, Robin of Sherwood: Tales Untold, to celebrate the show's fortieth anniversary. This was an audio CD contained five audio dramas about characters from Robin of Sherwood, with an accompanying novel. Robin of Sherwood: Tales Untold cast included Oliver Tobias, Robert Daws, Terry Molloy, Daniel Peacock and Claire Parker.