Created by Richard Carpenter, Robin of Sherwood was another in a long line of Robin Hood films and television series, but one which took a far different approach to the legend than anything that had gone before.
Starring Michael Praed as Robin of Loxley, the series was well and truly brought into the 1980s by mixing the English legend with a healthy dose of mysticism and magic. As well as all the regular characters featured in the various stories, this new version also added Herne the Hunter (John Abineri), a character from English folklore who was supposed to be the protector of the Saxon people and who claimed to be the Lord of the Trees.
Season 1 began with a feature-length re-imagining of the familiar tale, with Little John attacking Robin because of a pentacle which had been drawn on his body by the Baron de Belleme, a decidedly shady character who was more than proficient in the black arts. The famous archery competition to win the silver arrow, now renamed Herne's Arrow, was also present.
Armed with Albion (one of the Seven Swords of Wayland), which was given to him by Herne, Robin and his band of decidedly un-merry men took on the Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisburne in a weekly battle that was more about freedom than the tired old 'steal from the rich to give to the poor' stories of old.
It was the end of the Season 2, however, which provided the series with it's finest hour. The Greatest Enemy saw the latest of Herne's prophecies come true as Robin was cut down by a volley of arrows, but managing to buy enough time for Marion (Judi Trott) and Much (Peter Llewellyn Williams) to escape with their lives.
By the start of the Season 3 the outlaws had seperated, having returned to their (almost) normal lives. Needless to say, it wasn't long before Herne had convinced Robert of Huntingdon (Jason Connery) that he was to be the new Robin and the battle against the Sheriff and the forces of darkness soon resumed. A clever use for the later version of the legend which had Robin coming from the nobility.
Whilst Season There had an extended run of thirteen episodes, this was unfortunately the last that was seen of this highly imaginative version of the legend. Goldcrest, who produced the series for showing on ITV, went bankrupt and despite talk of a mini-series over the coming decade nothing more was seen. Since then, a number of other film and television series have tried to put their own spin on the legend (including the embarassingly bad US series The New Adventures of Robin Hood), but all have fallen far short of the mark set by Robin of Sherwood.
Surprisingly considering the regard in which the series is held, not a single episode was repeated on terrestrial television in the UK until May 2005 when ITV3 finally dusted the tapes down — even before then the series was only seen on subscription television via a repeat run on the cable and satellite channel Sky One during the early-1990s and on the cable channel Carlton Select in the late-1990s.
Luckily for fans of the series, restored copies of all episodes have been released on DVD, accompanied by a wealth of interviews, outtakes and documentaries. A Blu-ray set containing all of the Michael Praed episodes was released in the UK in 2010.
