Robin of Sherwood: Alan a Dale

 "It's a wedding, Gisburne. Not a celebration.."

I rather enjoyed this episode, perhaps the best yet. Nickolas Grace really is growing into the part of a properly moustache-twirningly evil Sheriff, and the script this week particularly sparkles with more than the usual level of humour.

This is based around a fairly straight retelling of the tale of Alan a Dale (is it just me who now has the song from that sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as an earworm?), although it must be noted that Mildred is sixteen years old, barely legal and, indeed, quite illegal in many other jurisdictions. Not only the Sheriff but also Alan are borderline nonces, and Robin and his Merry Men are all complicit in a marriage that is borderline noncery. But yes, moving very swifty on...

All the characters by this point are fully realised. Gisburne as the Sheriff's bullied dogsbody. John as the good natured randy type who is doing it with Meg. Will cynical as ever. Friar Tuck the merriest of the lot but very astute, being a churchman, as to what's going on politically.

The conclusion, and rescue of Mildred, is clever and entertaining, however jammy it may be that it worked. And yet the Sheriff contrives to be the ultimate winner, a nice touch.

One more episode to go and the first season is already over. We're almost a quarter of the way through already. This is brewing away very nicely indeed.

Robin of Sherwood: Seven Poor Knights from Acre

 "You'll get too big foryour boots, you will."

"Then I'll get bigger boots."

This episode impressed me. In theory, I'm annoyed by stories in which someone is famsely suspected of something they didn't do: it's frustrating , and the frustration tends to overwhelm any sense of drama or peril unless handled with great care. And here we seem to have a tale in which seven crusading knights- looking very, very High Middle Ages- falsely suspect Robin and his outlaws of stealing some fancy MacGuffin.

But that's not the point at all, really. The episode deconstructs the idea of the crusading knight. Friar Tuck pretty much tells us that, yes, they're fighting monks, with a vow of poverty and everything, Yet they are violent,pitiless, overbearing, known for massacring both "Saracens" and Jews. Even the Sheriff is wary of these vioilent warriors who are accountable to no one but the Pope himself.

The pace is slow in places, Marian and most of the Merry Men are sidelined a bit, and that same old incidental music is getting a bit samey. Yet it's all so well shot in its action sequences and the look is so wonderfully gritty. There are moments that really hit home- the Sheriff deciding to put out Siward's remaining eye for thieving in particular. Yet the episode works, and it's truly rewarding to see the knights getting their comeuppance.

Robin of Sherwood: The Witch of Elsdon

 "If she wanted to bewitch me, I'd be inclined to let her."

Given the intensity of the first two-parter, it's fascinating to see an "episode of the week". The plot is simple enough, and quite appalling... poor Jennet is accused of witchcraft for not submitting to rape by a Norman piece of ****, has to make impossible compromises because of her husband being in the Sheriff's power and being under threat of death by torture... but she's a good woman.

One small problem: it wasn't until much later in mediaeval England that beliefvin witchcraft was a thing amongst the educated, which in those days meant the Church. Witchcraft was superstition. St Augustine said so. But anyway...

I like the very '80s opening, the dream, very New Age, with Gisburne featuring prominently. It feels at once of its time and very 11th century, that semi-pagan age of Norman apartheid and English distress of a kind we would one day inflict on others. 

It's instructive to see how tax collectors were viewed in the age of feaudalism. No welfare state here, monasteries aside. Just Norman racist greed. The English, subject to such racism, resolved never again to be so, um...

I like the character stuff between Robin and Marian, echoed by Ennet's experiences: Marian is nit a precious jewel. She has agency. She is a person. The Sheriff, meanwhile, expels all Jews from Nottingham as he twirls his moustache.

This is, I suppose, our first "normal" episode. But it succeeds, being both fun and disturbing.

Robin of Sherwood: Robin Hood and the Sorcerer, Part 1

 "Beware the Horned One!"

I dimly remember reading the comic strip in Look-In in the mid-'80s, of which I remember nothing, but until tonight I'd never seen an episode of Robin of Sherwood, though its reputation precedes it.

It's fascinating to see what was in the zeitgeist in 1984: Herne the Hunter features prominently in The Box of Delights too, albeit the subtext of his being Woden- god and protector of the downtrodden English- is more explicitly present. We have a magic sword, a New Age score by Clannad, Robin's iconic duel with Little John involving mystical possession. 

And yet... the way this is shot, acted, written, is grim and gritty. This is not the clean, fantasy Middle Ages of Errol Flynn; this is a dirty, lived-in Norman England, a place of despair and unspeakable tyranny where the Norman lords, universally, are cynical, world-weary and cruel and the English, up until now, are meek and downtrodden. It's all so very well thought through. Yet the effect is far from a Flynn-style swashbuckler. This is both action adventure and drama. And, yeah, with that fascinating mystical pagan twinge.

One slight criticism: this is Sherwood Forest, which bestrides Nottinghamshire and the South Riding. So what's the stone circle? Why so many southern accents? 

That aside, though, this is extraordinary. I'm hooked.