Minghella and Allan were clear that their Robin had to echo the darker undercurrents of our times, too. “We want to be crowd-pleasing. This isn’t Play For Today. We want people to enjoy an action adventure, but if you do want to find contemporary parallels I want you to do so relatively easily. Being tabloid and broadsheet is what Doctor Who has done. It’s an adult and a family show,” he says.
The most obvious echoes here, of course, concern the war in the Holy Land. In this morning’s scene, for instance, Robin and his gang must confront a team of suicidal Islamic soldiers who have appeared in Nottingham seemingly intent on avenging injustices in the Holy Land. When Alan-a-Dale bemoans the fact they are worrying about a “war that is happening 2,000 miles away”, Robin angrily tells him the conflict is closer to home. “The war’s here, it’s in the forest.” As this suggests, Minghella’s Robin is a soldier who has returned from the Middle East with his eyes opened to the futility of war — and its consequences for the people of England.
“Robin’s asking himself: ‘What does war achieve?’ So when we put him in situations where, for instance, the Sheriff of Nottingham is cutting people’s tongues out, he tries to use his wits first before using the tools available to him. Robin tries everything not to use violence. I think that’s very contemporary; it’s about diplomacy, left-field thinking.”
For all their desire for contemporary resonances, however, Minghella and Allan, a veteran of long-running popular hits such as Casualty, are much too commercially aware to make the show overly serious. “There’s a danger of being pious and worthy, which we avoid by keeping it young and fresh and cheeky. We’ve got a bit of the buccaneering Errol Flynn in there as well,” says Minghella. With the swashbuckling Flynn in mind, Robin and his gang wield an exotic collection of weapons that includes a Saracen bow and scimitar for Robin and a massive, long-bladed sword for Little John.
Lightening the mood, too, are the support players. Robin is joined by a gang of multitalented partners, although not — in this series, at least — by Friar Tuck. “We didn’t have room for him in this series, but people shouldn’t read too much into that,” Minghella says, slightly defensively. “If there’s another series, there’s absolutely no reason why he couldn’t be there.”
As usual, the love interest is provided by Marian, the noblewoman with a foot in both the camp of Robin and the castle of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Originally depicted as a warrior, subsequently she was softened into a more passive figure by the Victorians. Minghella’s Marian — played by Lucy Griffiths — blends the best of both schools. Her feisty, bow-and-arrow wielding heroine is straight from the Keira Knightley mould, but the romantic sparks fly between her and Jonas Armstrong, too. She also gives the show a strong, appealing, young feminine figure to compare with Billie Piper, whose character, Rose, was central to Doctor Who’s success.
The show’s clowns and villains provide the light relief. A Falstaffian fall guy, Much the Miller’s son, is played by Sam Troughton, the grandson of the first television Robin (and later, of course, the second Doctor Who), Patrick Troughton. Minghella and Alan’s most astute piece of casting, however, may have been in the villains. Expect Keith Allen as a sneering and chillingly sadistic Sheriff of Nottingham (Allen later reveals that he has based the character on Gordon Brown), and Richard Armitage, as a debonair yet murderous Gisborne, to be vying for acting awards.
And welcome as critical success would be, Minghella and Allan hope to emulate Doctor Who in other ways. With its vast collection of bestselling books, DVDs, toys and memorabilia, Doctor Who is, so far, the best example of what the BBC calls “360-degree commissioning”. Minghella and his team hope that children everywhere will soon be demanding their versions of Robin’s scimitar and Saracen bow. “I did economics at university,” says Minghella. “The fusion of creative and commercial appeals to me.”
That fusion was behind the decision to come to low-budget Hungary. The move looked ill-advised at one point. As filming drew to a close, four high-definition tapes of the show were stolen from a production office, it is thought by a local extra. Rumours swirled of Hungarian robbers holding the BBC to a £1 million ransom. Eventually, however, concerns that scenes would need to be reshot proved unfounded and the production remained on track.
At the Fot Studios in Budapest, they have built three permanent sets, including the Sheriff of Nottingham’s castle and a complete reconstruction of the medieval village of Loxley, but the heart of the production is in the forest, an hour away. As the morning draws to an end at Bandit Rocks, Jonas Armstrong is justifying the faith the production has placed in him — remarkably, he was cast after one 20-minute audition. This morning’s scene, in which the gang debate how to respond to the Saracen menace, has taken almost five hours to complete.
The scene, Armstrong explains, sums up the Robin Hood he is creating. “He’s always been played almost as a superhero. The way I wanted to play him was as an everyman. He is not the kind of guy who sees something wrong and lets it be. He has to go by his sense of justice and what he thinks is right. This scene was very relevant to what he saw in the Crusades, so it was very important,” he says.
He admits that after five months of 6am wake-ups and 12-hour days it would be easy to let the energy levels dip. “A scene like today, you can’t go in with low energy because we’ve only got six weeks to go. You can’t risk it,” he says. He admits, however, that the production is taking its toll.
“When we started five months ago I didn’t think I would be able to get to the end of it, but now I can see there is a finish line. It has been very tough but very rewarding,” he says.
And can it imitate the success of Doctor Who? The early signs are good, as far as the Minghella household is concerned at least. The father of three children showed his 11-year-old son the opening episode on a brief trip home. “I had to drag him away from the computer games. But within 15 minutes he was hooked. Much to my relief,” he chuckles.
He will know soon enough whether his production is really out of the woods. But the smart money suggests that the forests of Dobogoko have not seen the last of their outlaws just yet.
Robin Hood begins next month on BBC One
