Review: ROBIN HOOD. THE LEGEND. RE-WRITTEN, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

The story of Robin Hood has been told many, many times, through Disney’s animation of a cartoon fox, a long list of both modern and period live action films of “men in tights”, he’s even featured in an episode of Doctor Who as a cyborg - the list goes on. Now it’s the turn of Regents Park to give their original take on this tale and a glance at the marketing for this show gives you a look at the eponymous hooded figure, bow drawn yet also dressed in sunglasses and purple Doc Martens and this is pretty much exactly the semi-confusing vibe of this show…

While the ever beautiful outdoor venue, surrounded by trees and open to the elements is beyond the perfect place for this show (it was nice to see Chiara Stephenson’s set design embrace its surroundings instead of try to fight them), the production itself we found to be spinning a few too many plates at once and unfortunately lost itself in the process.

In this version, the classic Robin Hood skips onto the stage only to be told that “that’s not what we’re doing here” by Nandi Bhebhe’s mysterious character (no spoilers from us here) who introduces us to a brand new host of characters - led by Woodnut (Dumile Sibanda), a young girl who, after her father refuses to pay tax to the Sheriff, is forced to run away into the forest where she meets Little Joan and Mary Tuck and sets of on an adventure to bring down the Sheriff’s regime. 

Along the way, Hood joins the fray, this time the Hood is more of a mantle than a character, as the identity changes throughout the show and becomes an idea, larger than that of a single person. It’s here that we’ll stop recounting the events of the show as they start to become unnecessarily complex, as various things begin to happen that one just would not expect and lead us - as an audience - to lose investment in the characters/plot of the show.

This is somewhat frustrating as the world that we are introduced to at the start of the play has real potential to be entertaining for adults and children alike. There is a clear goal of educating younger members of the audience in the corruption of governments in a light-hearted way. However, as the lines started to blur from jokes that would go over children’s heads to two quite brutal and gruesome murders and an over-reliance on hallucinogenic drugs (yes, you read that right) in Act 2, we were left feeling quite concerned for the younger people in the audience and quite unsure as to what had happened to the “twist on a classic tale” play that we were watching. We’ve not even mentioned a chest full of talking fingers making an appearance!

This isn’t helped much by the acting performances within the piece that feel more akin to a pantomime than the, at times, Game Of Thrones style material they are presenting, which again just reinforces the unbalanced and confused nature of the production.

We feel that if the creative team were to take a step back from getting caught up in too many diverging paths from the original and found a more balanced tone, this show could really succeed, yet instead what is presented at the moment is more a workshop, than a polished production.

*** Three stars

Reviewed by: Callum Wallace

Robin Hood. The Legend. Re-written plays at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre until 22 July, with further information here: https://openairtheatre.com/production/robin-hood