Maid Marian and Her Merry Men

Maid Marian and her Merry Men is a British children's television series created and written by Tony Robinson and directed by David Bell. It began in 1989 on BBC1 and ran for four series, with the last episode shown in 1994. The show was a partially musical comedy retelling of the legend of Robin Hood, placing Maid Marian in the role of leader of the Merry Men, and reducing Robin to an 'incompetent' ex-tailor.

The programme has been likened to Blackadder, not only for its historical setting and the presence of Tony Robinson (as well as early, uncredited, script editing work being undertaken by Richard Curtis), but also for its comic style. Many of the show's cast, such as Howard Lew Lewis, Forbes Collins, John Rapley, Ramsay Gilderdale and Patsy Byrne, had previously appeared in various episodes of Blackadder alongside Robinson.

The show's success led to an adaptation produced for the stage and a cartoon strip by Paul Cemmick which was serialised in the Daily Telegraph's children's paper The Young Telegraph (also available as a series of collections), and the programme was repeated on BBC One in 2001. Series 1 was released on video in 1990 and 1993, with three episodes each on four tapes, and all four series are available on DVD. It was repeated in April 2002 on the CBBC Channel and the first series was repeated in June 2007 at 12:30 on the CBBC Channel. During the summer of 2009, Gold repeated the entire 4 series.

Tony Robinson was in discussion about a revival in 2018,[1] 2021[2] and 2022.[3]

Many of the plots featured, included or revolved around spoofing particular things, including films such as Jurassic Park and It Came from Outer Space, and television programmes, including The Crystal Maze and the long-running televised fundraisers Children in Need and Comic Relief. There were also frequent references to other Robin Hood incarnations, most notably ITV's Robin of Sherwood (and in particular that series' theme song by Clannad, "Robin (The Hooded Man)" is lampooned in the episode "The Whitish Knight") and the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The latter actually features Howard Lew Lewis (Rabies) among its cast.

The music and songs for Maid Marian and Her Merry Men were composed by Nick Russell-Pavier and David Chilton. Each episode contained either one or two songs, which were mostly originals but were sometimes parodies. According to commentaries on the DVDs, the actors were frequently dubbed in their singing voices, both by themselves and (more often) by professional singers in post-filming studio sessions. Gary, Graeme, Guy and Barrington almost always sing their own songs, however.

Maid Marian and her Merry Men won several awards, including the 1990 BAFTA for "Best Children's Programme (Entertainment/Drama)".[5] It was also nominated for the same award in 1991, losing to Press Gang.[6] The programme also won at least one award from the Royal Television Society, as well as the prestigious "Prix Jeunesse Variety Award" at the International Children's Programme Festival in Munich.[citation needed ]

The programme was set in the very real Nottinghamshire town of Worksop, which, along with Mansfield, is one of the two closest modern day towns to the Major Oak, although the whole show was shot in Somerset. The outside scenes were filmed in woods at Porlock, near Minehead, and the castle scenes were filmed in Cleeve Abbey. The beach at Porlock features in some of the episodes including The Whitish Knight.

Subsequent series were not released on video.

The DVDs were released after much online campaigning and a petition setup by fans c. 2002 . Some of the signatures included cast members, although proof of this is now lost.

Written (and adapted) by Tony Robinson, illustrated by Paul Cemmick. Published by the BBC and BBC Books Ltd. between 1989 and 1992.

The programme was adapted for a stage musical by Tony Robinson, Mark Billingham and David Lloyd. It toured several British theatres. The theatre programme for the production at the Bristol Old Vic featured new artwork by Paul Cemmick, showing Tony Robinson dreaming the production after being hit in the head by a football. The script for this production was later published in book format by Longman literature in 1992, as part of a series of BBC TV (and radio) plays to be used in classrooms at Key Stage 3 level (roughly ages 11–14). The book includes support material and activities for this purpose.