What's so good about Robin Hood?

(Kevin Costner as Robin Hood*).

A couple of years ago I was having a drink with Visible Fictions artistic director Dougie Irvine and pitching the idea of a new version of Robin Hood. It's always been one of my favourite stories and I reckoned a low tec, slightly bonkers re-telling would be great.

Dougie was enthusiastic but we both had other shows to make and that was that. Or so I thought.

Last August I was rehearsing Dragon in Film City in Govan and Dougie was re-rehearsing Visible Fictions unstoppable masterpiece Jason & the Argonauts. He asked if I had had any more thoughts about the famous outlaw. Visible Fictions and the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC were planning a new collaboration and had settled on Robin Hood. Would I be interested?

Erm... Yes please, I said. Yes. Definitely.

What's so good about Robin Hood?

One of the defining films of my childhood was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (my little sister and I knew all the words to Bryan Adams' hit Everything I Do and would sing along every Thursday when it came on Top of the Pops) and Maid Marion & Her Merry Men is still one of the best TV shows for kids ever. Anyone a bit older remembers Robin of Sherwood and The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn is a Hollywood classic. I wasn't a fan of the latest BBC TV version or the Ridley Scott film but both pulled in the audiences.

Robin shouldn't be so attractive. He's a thief. He lives in a wood. He hangs out with a bunch of unruly blokes. *He often has stupid hair.

But he steals from the rich and gives to the poor and in a time when 85 people are as wealthy as the poorest half of the world's population, this ancient tale seems as relevant as ever.

Robin Hood is a story about what happens when the most powerful forget about the least among us.

He isn't perfect - far from it - but he's on our side and that's ultimately why we love him.

Visible Fictions/Kennedy Centre's The Adventures of Robin Hood opens at the beginning of March. See here for more details.

Robin Hood Rehearsals Week 2 - Making A Mess

Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham are building a castle out of cardboard boxes.

Well, to be precise the actors Martin McCormick and Bill Mack are building a castle out of cardboard boxes. Some of the boxes have white paint on, others have the word 'trick', and there one small box is marked 'chicken'.

Confused?

We are in week two of rehearsals of Visible Fiction's production of my new play, The Adventures of Robin Hood. This is the messy bit. We've had the first week when we have played around with ideas, now we are almost half way through the second week and the room is in chaos.

This is when we work everything out. Despite the mayhem, we are actually making decisions and building the show, brick by brick. It's slow and painstaking yet always playful and fun.

And what at first seems like a pile of old boxes suddenly transforms into the great castle of Nottingham...