Robin Hood: A new adventure

If you can’t have Richard Armitage or Guy of Gisborne, the next best thing is to have his voice (I love his voice – it’s like snuggling up to something warm and northern).

And you can get his voice on a new audiobook, reading a Robin Hood adventure which takes place time-wise in the last series. It’s called The Witchfinders, and starts with Richard Armitage describing Guy waking up drenched in sweat. That’s enough of a mental picture to warm many a winter night.

Who killed Robin Hood?

It was Isabella and her poisoned pointy knife, surely?

Well, Isabella might have killed off Robin-the-person, but it looks as though falling ratings killed off Robin-the-series. I did wonder, when we saw the lead character’s demise on Saturday, whether the show might be able to carry on, with Archer installed as the new leader of the Merry Men. A bit like Taggart, which carried on regardless after the man who played Taggart died. No-one minded a Taggartless Taggart, so we’d probably have accepted a Robinless Robin Hood. It’s not like the programme was ever a beacon of historical accuracy anyway.

For me, I could have happily done without Jonas Armstrong and his little, Phil Mitchell-like button nose. Harder to bear would have been the lack of Guy of Gisborne, in all his black leather, dark eyeshadow, tortured soul glory.

Falling ratings have been blamed on the decision to get rid of the show, but I bet the absence of Keith Allen’s Sheriff and the conversion of Guy from Bad Man to Merry Man during this series had a lot to do with that. Every hero needs a decent baddie to fight.

Robin Hood: Could everyone please stop getting killed?

I really should read more spoilers, then maybe I could save myself from the kind of shocks and upset I went through watching last night’s Robin Hood.

Guy of Gisborne died! Stabbed by Isabella (or was it the Sheriff? There was such a melee going on). But worse – Isabella had slashed Robin with a poisoned sword, and Robin’s hours were also numbered. Guy’s dying words were to tell Robin that at least Robin would have Marian waiting for him when he got to a better place.

And so it turned out to be. Robin said his goodbyes to the Merry Men, and made them promise to continue their fight for right. Then he wandered off, like an elephant, to die alone. And through the trees appeared a heavenly vision of Marian.

The merry men carried his body away (accompanied by a lot of sniffing and tears, both on screen and off, in my house at least). Archer pledged to join them, and off they went.

Saturdays will never be the same again.

Robin Hood: the return of the Sheriff of Nottingham

The final part of this series of Robin Hood is a two-parter (final part next Saturday), and it’s just as well we have a week to recover because I was a gibbering wreck by the end of this one.

Talk about developments… We had Robin, Guy and Much up to their necks in gravel in a secret tunnel under the castle.  We had Kate getting all broken-hearted because she thought Robin was in love with Isabella (as if).

Excitingly, we had the discovery that Archer is not only a good archer, he’s also a ninja. Hurrah! There just aren’t enough ninjas on telly on a Saturday night.

Even more excitingly – remember when Guy of Gisborne killed the Sheriff of Nottingham (the Keith Allen version)? And we saw the Sheriff’s hand twitch? We kind of guessed he wasn’t dead, but he’s taken a while to reappear. When he turned up last night he did it in style, with a flag-waving, horse-riding army behind him. This is truly thrilling news. With Gisborne almost on the side of the angels these days, we’ve been missing a proper dose of eye-shadow-wearing, snarling camp menace.

There was tragedy, too – Alan was killed by the Sheriff’s men, which is bound to pitch the Merry Men into a state of unmerry guilt because the reason Alan was on his own was that Isabella had tricked them into thinking he was a traitor.

So how will it all shake out? Will Gisborne continue to be a Merry Man? Will Archer throw his ninja skills in with the outlaws? Will Kate cheer up?

Tune in next week to find out.

Robin Hood: three brothers and a sister

As the current series of Robin Hood draws to an end (last one next Saturday – WAAAAAAAHH!!), Robin finds himself with a larger family than he thought he had.  It turns out that his dad and Guy of Gisborne’s mum had a bit of a “thing.” The bit of a thing has now grown up and his name is Archer. Hence, Guy and Robin (and Isabella too) have a mutual brother.

Does this mean they’ll get all cuddly and love each other? Of course not. Robin still hates Guy for killing Marian. Guy hates Robin for being the cause of his parents’ deaths – in the episode we saw last week, in which Robin’s dad came back to tell all about Archer, we found that, as a boy, Robin was a bit of a brat. Isabella hates Guy for marrying her off to a nasty man, and everyone hates Isabella for being the Sheriff of Nottingham and being all ruthless and cheekboney and that.

Archer didn’t seem all that thrilled to discover he had all these siblings, though he did think it might come in handy to be related to the Sheriff of Nottingham – but he hasn’t met Isabella yet.

So, for now, Guy of Gisborne has become a Merry Man, though his presence hasn’t gone down well with Kate – because (a) he killed her brother and (b) he’s much better looking than she is and she was just starting to make progress with Robin.