The Adventures of Robin Hood (series)

The Adventures of Robin Hood was a popular, long-running British television series (143 half-hour, black and white episodes, 1955 - 1960) starring Richard Greene as Robin Hood. Other cast members included:

• Alan Wheatley as the Sheriff of Nottingham
• Bernadette O'Farrell or Patricia Driscoll as Maid Marian
• Alexander Gauge as Friar Tuck
• Archie Duncan, later replaced by Rufus Cruikshank, as Little John
• Ronald Howard as Will Scarlet
• Paul Eddington as Alan a Dale

The programme was made by Sapphire Films Ltd for ITC Entertainment. It was the first of many big-budget shows commissioned by Lew Grade, who hoped to make big profits by selling programmes to the lucrative American market. Consequently the series was shot on 35mm film and had fade-outs where US commercials were intended to slot in.

Most of the action was filmed in the studio, with one large fake oak tree and lots of foliage standing in for Sherwood Forest. There was some location filming, mainly involving horse-riding doubles and stuntmen, and without dialogue recording.

The closing theme, sung by Gary Miller, is still fondly remembered:

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad, loved by the good;
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood!

One of the series' writers was the blacklisted Ring Lardner.

The series was an immediate hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and Lew Grade continued to commission 35mm shows until the late 1970s. If it had not been for the success of The Adventures of Robin Hood the world might never have seen The Saint, The Prisoner or Thunderbirds.