Unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent

Eek!  This is my first ever blog post with WordPress.  I’m a little intimidated by all the options, to be honest.  But I love having the blog right on my site, and I LOVE threaded commenting.    Oh threaded commenting how I missed you!  Can someone with more WP experience than me tell me if it e-mails people when someone replies directly to their comment, the way livejournal does?

Those of you who’ve read In for a Penny may remember the Ambreys’ fondness for “The Ballad of Captain Kidd.”  Alert reader Barb (I read the complete works of Dave Barry at a formative age, I am giving in to the instinct to say “alert reader” right now) sent me this awesome video of “Great Big Sea” performing the song:

Isn’t the singer cute?  He kind of reminds me of Christian Kane.  Barb informs me he is going to play Alan-a-Dale in some new version of Robin Hood.  There can never be enough versions of Robin Hood, I believe this in my soul.  Especially if you cast Russell Crowe as Robin Hood.  There had better be tights, is all I’m saying.  And they’re giving Eleanor of Aquitaine a part!  One of my top issues with the Errol Flynn version (I have a number of issues with that movie even though I adore it) is this “Longchamps is regent” stuff.  No!  Richard and John’s MOTHER was regent when Richard was gone, and she was awesome.

I am saddened by the lack of Guy of Guisborne, but no one could ever measure up to Basil Rathbone’s performance anyway.  (I’m kidding…maybe?  Not sure.  I have liked other Sir Guys, but Basil Rathbone was one of my very first celebrity crushes, when I was in middle school.  I still love him.  Did you know Daphne du Maurier had a crush on him when he worked in her father’s theater troupe as a young man?  I wonder how she felt about his periwig in the movie of Frenchman’s Creek.  I felt pretty awful about it.)

And this may actually be my favorite part: Mathew Macfadyen is going to be the Sheriff of Nottingham. I hope they keep to the traditional bumbling characterization, because if they do that will be adorable.

Let’s talk Robin Hood!  Which is your favorite Robin Hood retelling (book or movie)?  Who’s your favorite character?  Do you like tights?  Why the heck does Peter Pan have the exact same outfit in the Disney movie, no, seriously, why?  What do you think of that whole “robbing from the rich and giving to the poor” thing, anyway?

13 thoughts on “Unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent”

  1. Oh, a new Robin Hood? That is very exciting. I love the Errol Flynn version, but recently had fun watching the first season of the BBC Robin Hood. I need to get around to watching the second season. Do books count too? I read Stephen Lawhead’s Hood recently and it was an interesting reinterpretation, set in Wales a few hundred years before the Crusades.
    As to the same outfit, maybe they were running low on the costume budget and found it in the back room?

    1. Ooh, I haven’t read Hood OR watched the BBC Robin Hood, although I’ve been thinking about it. I hear it’s in a similar vein to Merlin, which I enjoyed a lot even though I only made it through half of the first season due to being really really busy.
      Now I’m laughing really hard at the idea that cartoons have wardrobe departments! So cute.

      1. Well, you’d hate to have to draw completely new costumes all the time, especially if you have something nice and easy to copy in the files. 🙂

  2. My favourite Robin Hood is Robin McKinley’s. If you’ve read The Outlaws of Sherwood, that being my favourite will answer all of your other questions! And if you haven’t, then I sincerely recommend it.

    1. I have read that! I loved it like crazy in middle school and read it about five times. Marian was AWESOME. I will tell you something a little embarrassing, it inspired me to write my own piece of Robin Hood fanfiction, actually, a short story from Guy of Guisborne’s POV, in which he was angsty and anti-Crusade and hopelessly in love with Marian, and Robin was a jerk. I…may have a bit of a historical crush on Prince John for being the unathletic brother who inherited his father’s talent for administration? Which has always made the Richard-love in Robin Hood retellings a bit hard for me to take…

      1. This makes me think you really need to see the BBC Robin Hood. The Robin v. Guy dynamic as they try to get Marion are something to see.

  3. Most wickedly I did…
    Can we go back to talking about how adorable Alan Doyle is? (In his normal role of musician. Looks pretty scruffy in the new Robin Hood movie.)
    I’m a sucker for Robin Hood stories as well. Still have a soft spot for the Disney version. And have been known to quote Alan Rickman’s lines from Prince of Thieves.
    The new movie is Ridley Scott & Russell Crowe, so I’m expecting GladiatorBraveheart. Looking at the promo photos, the merry men appear to be garbed in manly tight pants.

    1. Please let’s! I just finally watched the trailer and I’ll admit I was underwhelmed, but I loved Gladiator despite its MANY historical inaccuracies so I will reserve judgement until I’ve seen it. The boots are good enough I will forgive the lack of tights! I love boots with laces. But I am going on record right now as saying I will be VERY ANGRY if Alan Doyle doesn’t get to sing.
      I’ve only seen Prince of Thieves once…I didn’t like it much but I was about 13. I might feel differently now–that was long before I realized the joy of Alan Rickman. I just saw Die Hard for the first time and Alan Rickman was SO AMAZING in it! I wanted him to escape with the bearer bonds and go live on a beach somewhere drinking pineapple drinks and was maybe a little too sad when that didn’t happen…

  4. I *love* that BBC version, Robin of Sherwood. We recorded them and I used to watch the tapes over and over. I think I love pretty much every telling I’ve ever read/seen. I even loved Prince of Thieves, all joking aside. (Alan was AMAZING in that movie too.) Underwhelmed is the perfect word for how I feel about the new one though.

    1. I see that Prince of Thieves is in my future! And I see “Robin of Sherwood” is out on DVD, so perhaps a trip to Scarecrow Video is in order…

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