Robin Hood

I watched this series as a child while in Whitney, England, and have many fond memories of it. Much to my delight I found a Video with three of the original episodes and found that it really was a very enjoyable show, even at my current age of 56!

Yes, this was, indeed, a fine production. Richard Green certainly brought the character of Robin Hood to sparkling life with a dashing personality and great conviction. Australia's own Errol Flynn did a pretty good job as well.

These shows were fun. They made history entertaining.

It's a shame that kids don't have this sort of educational fare to fire their imagination these days.

Period films and television series have frequently come in for a great deal of criticism over the years and much of the flack has been entirely justified.

However, some of the better productions which have graced both the big and small screens have presented tales of earlier times in a way that the printed word has often been unable to.

Certainly the best loved show of my childhood.

The series was shown in its entirety on a UK cable station early 1990s.

As well as the regular cast there was a repertory company of 6 character actors including Paul Eddington who appeared as different people in different shows. Eddington for example was the regular Will Scarlett but would also turn up as goody or baddie. Victor Wolfe (derwent, one of Robins band) regularly turned up as usually an old man in various episodes. I don't think children in the year 2004 would be so easily convinced. Confusingly there were two Maid Marions and two Little Johns during the course of the series. The writers wrote under nom de plumes (they were blacklisted in Hollywood). Richard Greene retired to Ireland to breed champion horses. By a very strange coincidence his great-niece Hazel Greene became the first Irishwoman to represent Ireland in Olympic Archery (strange but true)

I have very fond memories of this series from when it was first aired in Britain in the fifties. In fact, it was my favourite at the time. I remember being amazed that, in one episode, Robin Hood had an 'evil twin' who could appear in the same shots as him. I also used to love the sword-fighting. And, of course, there was that moment when Robin said 'I have a plan . . . ' and the scene faded out . . .

I saw some of the episodes again more recently and realised from an adult perspective how good it really was: the goodies were good, the baddies were bad and the actors didn't mumble!

But what I still haven't found out is how the look-out always managed to shoot his arrow with the message wrapped round it into the tree in Robin Hood's camp without pranging someone!

If you like Robin Hood, this is one of the best if not the best ever Robin Hood creation ever. Richard Greene plays Robin Hood brilliantly. Growing up he was Robin Hood. If you have never seen this before, where have been, buy yourself a copy of this brilliant masterpiece.