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Maid Marian and her Merry Men

Maid Marian and her Merry Men
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men Series 1 DVD.jpg
Series 1 DVD cover
Genre Situation Comedy
Created by Tony Robinson
Directed by David Bell
Starring
Composer(s)
  • David Chilton
  • Nick Russell-Pavier
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of series 4
No. of episodes 26
Production
Producer(s) Richard Callanan
Cinematography David Gautier
Camera setup Single-camera
Running time 25 minutes 1x 50 Minutes
Production company(s) BBC
Release
Original network BBC1
Original release 16 November 1989 (1989-11-16) – 16 February 1994 (1994-02-16)

Maid Marian and her Merry Men is a British children's sitcom created and written by Tony Robinson and directed by David Bell. It began in 1989 on BBC One and ran for four series, with the last episode shown in 1994. The show was a partially musical comic 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 was much appreciated by children and adults alike, and 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. It is more surreal than Blackadder, however, and drops even more (deliberate) anachronisms. Many of the show's cast such as Howard Lew Lewis, Forbes Collins, Ramsay Gilderdale and Patsy Byrne had previously appeared in various episodes of Blackadder alongside Robinson. Like many British children's programmes, there is a lot of social commentary sneakily inserted, as well as witty asides about the Royal family, buses running on time, etc. Many of the plots spoofed or referenced film and television shows including other incarnations of Robin Hood in those media.

The show was such a success that there was an adaptation produced for the stage, 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, with three episodes each on two tapes, and all four series are available on DVD. During the summer of 2009, Gold repeated the entire 4 series.


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