‘You heard me, yeah?” That’s Robin Hood, back in Nottingham after three years away on the Crusades, trying to persuade Maid Marian to finally marry him. Sticklers for 12th-century accuracy look away now. Bill Thomas’s historical clunker takes its cue from the Guy Ritchie approach to ye olde times authenticity, but without the studio budget to pull off the action scenes.
This is the legend of Robin Hood told from the perspective of Maid Marian, with bit of female kick-assery standing in for feminism. It opens with Marian (Sophie Craig) hiding out in a convent while Robin is off fighting. Pretending to be a novitiate called Sister Matilda, she is dying of boredom. Her one hobby is sneaking out past the mother superior to poach deer for starving peasants (and lamping soldiers who get in her way).
Robin returns to Sherwood after the death of the king. After a half-hearted snog, the pair go on the run from the Sheriff of Nottingham (Bob Cryer), who is also back, miffed at being in exile for the past three years. Unfathomably, Dominic Andersen plays Robin Hood with bland boybandishness despite having the back catalogue of Hollywood’s finest to model his performance on, from Errol Flynn to Russell Crowe.
There are one or two nice double-crosses along the way, but The Adventures of Maid Marion falls pretty flat, the fault perhaps of resources stretched too thin. The script throws in the odd “begone!” but is almost comically unmedieval– there’s even a blasphemous nun: “Jesus, Matilda!” And pity the poor unprotected peasants of Nottingham: they barely get a look in.
• The Adventures of Maid Marian is available on 9 May on digital platforms.
