Robin Hood, Robin Hood....

A late and much lamented friend of the family is always indelibly associated in my mind with Robin Hood. Whenever the old film was shown on the telly, he and my husband would phone each other up, and spend time chortling over the green tights. (Maid Marian is actually to be seen weaving those tights in that early film. Or at least there seems to be something green on her loom.....) The pair of them had been members of the same fencing club - the sword fighting kind - and would practice in the garden, or shoot longbows. One summer, I remember, they had an axe throwing contest on the lawn.

This week's Radio Times shows a Maid Marian in what looks more like lycra than homespun, but as with Doctor Who, there's a whole new generation to be enticed into viewing. Robin is being played by a friend of a young friend. I must say he looks very very young to me. Policemen, doctors and bank managers also look alarmingly boyish. 'What is he doing out without his mammy?' as they say up here in Scotland. On the other hand, Guy of Gisborne, alias the amazing Richard Armitage, smouldering away in black leather, on the cover of that same Radio Times, is obviously there for us slightly... how can I put this?... more mature ladies. Nobody smoulders like our Richard.
'Don't I look like that when I'm in my bike leathers?' asked my husband, somewhat plaintively. There's no answer to that one, is there? But then I'm no Maid Marian either....