![]() Jenna Coleman is absolutely superb, nailing each moment, every nuance with a natural ease, and she looks ravishing in her Maid Marian ringlets and garb. Also like those earlier times, it’s the companion who achieves results with her instinct, intuition and empathy. ![]() Like his predecessors long ago in the 1960s and 70s, he’s a strange senior figure, authoritative but not always correct in his assertions. You can see it coming, but the moment when the jailer identifies her as the “true ringleader” is still funny.Ĭapaldi’s Doctor steps out of the shadows of the earlier episodes yet remains resolutely dour, hilariously so, questioning the reality of Robin and his surroundings, and discomfited as the truth dawns. ![]() Here it delivers proper entertainment as the heroes bicker and posture, until Clara explodes at them. It slowed down so many 20th-century Who adventures and rarely featured in RTD’s tenure. Russell T Davies had an edict that the Doctor and his friends should never be incarcerated. ![]() Tom Riley is a lithe, good-looking hero with a sunny disposition – a stark contrast to Peter Capaldi’s “grey old man”, as Robin calls him, or even funnier, “desiccated man-crone”. Robot of Sherwood evokes the breezy joy and buckle-swashing of the 1938 Hollywood classic with Errol Flynn. In a compact 45-minute drama the focus needs to be on the Doctor, Clara, Robin and the Sheriff – and in that it succeeds, with pearly interplay between the quartet. Did you spot Alan-a-Dale is played by Mark Gatiss’s real-life partner Ian Hallard? Otherwise, as a group, they’re free of the sops to the PC Patrol seen in other modern retellings, and are mercifully allowed to be merry, unburdened by the angst seen in the BBC1 series (2006–9) or ITV’s superior Robin of Sherwood (of the mid 1980s). For once, Little John really is a little man, peering out through the legs of the gargantuan stereotype. If you’re scouring for shortcomings, you could whinge that the Merrie Men aren’t given much to chew on, but Mark ensures that each gets his moment in the sun. The Doctor defeats Robin on the log with a spoon and a hip wiggle he cheats at the archery using arrows with a homing device the heroes don’t escape from the dungeon quite according to plan and the Sherwood glades are so verdant because of radiation leaking from the spaceship. Masterly Mark Gatiss has fashioned an elegant, hugely witty script that delivers a coherent plot and everything you could want from an encounter with Robin Hood: ribald banter in leafy glade, log fight over river, archery contest, swordfight in castle, escape from dungeon… Call them clichés if you will but I’d feel shortchanged were any of these timeworn elements omitted.īut Mark also gives each a little tweak. Robot of Sherwood is one of the most charming episodes in eons. The Doctor crossing swords with Robin Hood and his Merrie Men seemed a daft notion, and the photos and clips of Tom Riley (raven-haired heart-throb from Da Vinci’s Demons) in a dodgy flaxen wig didn’t help. Zounds! What a dazzling episode! I didn’t have hopes. First UK broadcast Saturday 6 September 2014Ĭast The Doctor – Peter Capaldi Clara Oswald – Jenna Coleman Robin – Tom Riley Sheriff of Nottingham – Ben Miller Quayle – Roger Ashton-Griffiths Quayle’s ward/Marian – Sabrina Bartlett Alan-a-Dale – Ian Hallard Friar Tuck – Trevor Cooper Little John – Rusty Goffe Will Scarlett – Joseph Kennedy Walter – Adam Jones Herald – David Benson Guard – David Langham Knight – Tim Baggaley Voice of the Knights – Richard ElfynĬrew Writer – Mark Gatiss Director – Paul Murphy Producer – Nikki Wilson Music – Murray Gold Designer – Michael Pickwoad Executive producers – Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin
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