It ticks every box you could wish for in your olde worlde trash: Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham, faerie smut … and not a bad wig in sight! Hurrah!
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utumn is entering the home straight. Winter is coming. We are more than due, therefore, a piece of fantasy/folkloric tomfoolery set in the days of yore – which is further back than yesteryear and therefore more forgiving all round – stuffed with young actors trying out their talents, and old thesps keeping their alimony/next passion-project funded. Welcome, my friends, to this year’s most glorious offering: Robin Hood.
I really only need to tell you two things about it. One is that it stars Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham. I know. I know. We all wanted to live that long and we have! And two, there are no bad wigs in it! Because – there are no wigs at all! Some benevolent hand must have reached down and gently turned wardrobe away from the “long, stringy, Yore-hair” box that habitually damns these ventures, and instead commanded our hero and his men – and the occasional woman – to be merry without them.
This is enough to earn my undying devotion by itself, but there are more delights to come. In fact, it begins with the opening caption. Who does not enjoy a good opening caption? Ideally, one that tells us the makers have worked on the basis of no assumed knowledge whatsoever, and which sets out exactly where we are and what is happening without the need for a lot of dialogue and showing rather than telling?
