This post is my contribution to the 10^th annual Favourite TV Episodes Blogathon run by Terence Towles Canote over at A Shroud of Thoughts. To mark the 40^th anniversary of Robin of Sherwood I’ve chosen The King’s Fool, the final episode in series 1, which subverts the traditional telling of the encounter between Robin Hood (Michael Praed) and Richard the Lionheart (John Rhys-Davies) in Sherwood Forest.

Robin of Sherwood was created by writer Richard Carpenter (Catweazle, Adventures of Black Beauty), in collaboration with producers Paul Knight and Patrick Dromgoole. They had all worked together before. Knight and Carpenter enjoyed huge success with Dick Turpin (1979-82) before reuniting for the Oliver Tobias vehicle Smuggler (1981). Dromgoole had produced Arthur of the Britons (1972-73) (also starring Tobias) and an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Kidnapped (1978) for the ITV regional network HTV, before joining Carpenter and Knight on Smuggler. 

Carpenter reworked the legend of Robin Hood adding an element of supernatural folklore into the story. The entire first season of Robin of Sherwood was helmed by Ian Sharp (Who Dares Wins) and it mixes the authentic feel of Richard Lester’s Robin and Marian (1976) with the mysticism of John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981). The haunting soundtrack by Irish band Clannad added to this otherworldly air. Most notable was the addition of a Saracen companion, Nasir (Mark Ryan), who was only supposed to be in the first episode but proved such a compelling figure he was added to the group. 

The two-part opener Robin Hood and the Sorcerer brought all the outlaws together. Carpenter wanted to cast young actors, pointing out revolutions are usually fuelled by youthful rebellion. Praed starred as Robin of Loxley (later replaced by Jason Connery’s Robert of Huntingdon), Judi Trott as Maid Marian, Clive Mantle as Little John, Phil Rose as Tuck and Peter Llewelyn Williams as Mutch. The most experienced cast member was Ray Winstone (Quadrophenia, Scum) as the volatile Will Scarlet. Martin only appeared in the first season and Martin West, the actor who played him only has one other screen credit, an episode of Stacy Keach’s Mike Hammer series. 

Carpenter’s writing on Dick Turpin and Smuggler had an anti-authoritarian streak and this continues in Robin of Sherwood. In The King’s Fool he delivers a cynical reworking of the legend of King Richard disguising himself and travelling into Sherwood to find Robin Hood. The episode opens with a lone knight riding on horseback through Sherwood Forest. Bandits ambush the knight and drag him from his horse overpowering him before he can fight back. As their leader draws his knife and moves in for the kill he is felled by an arrow fired by Robin. “So you fight among yourselves?” says the knight as his tormenters flee. He bristles when Robin says he’s defending the people of Sherwood. “You talk as if they belong to you.” “No man belongs to another” answers Robin using Nasir as an example. “Try buying him with a thousand horses.” 

There’s an obvious clash between social hierarchies here but something else is going on. Surprised when the outlaws offer him hospitality the Knight is watchful as they eat together. He listens as they talk about the problems facing the poor and the abuses dished out by the nobility. He offers a toast to King Richard which stuns his hosts. Only Robin raises his drink in acceptance. “When King Richard returns…” says the Knight, “pigs will fly,” interrupts Will, and Little John lists all the reasons nobody in England wants Lionheart back. 

“It’s time to pay us Sir Knight.” They do after all rob the rich to feed the poor, but the Knight offers them a deal. A wrestling match for his horse. If he wins, he rides out of the forest. It’s an even contest until the Knight in an incredible display of physical strength picks up Little John and holds him over his head before throwing him to the ground. “Who are you?” asks Robin. A punch floors him before the answer arrives. “Lionheart!” 

As in the old tales Robin and his followers kneel to the King, expecting the worst as they are surrounded by soldiers. “Yes, I was hunting. Hunting a young wolfshead called Robin Hood.” All over Europe he heard the stories of Robin Hood and his battles with the Sheriff. “God’s legs, you’re a wild lad Robin, but you saved your King, and that wipes the slate clean.” The King offers them all a pardon should they visit him in Nottingham that night. Will, an embittered Saxon who hates the Normans, is more suspicious. “What if he changes his mind? I trust very few people and I’m looking at all of them.” He resolves to stay in the forest. 

Will’s fears seem to be confirmed when the outlaws are confronted by Sir Guy of Gisborne (Robert Addie) and arrested as they enter Nottingham. Gisborne does not know about the pardon though and is mocked by Richard when he parades the seven outlaws in front of the court at Nottingham Castle. “Did they intend to scale the castle walls and put us all to the sword? Or did they intend to surround us and lay siege to us?” It’s King Richard who is really doing the parading, showing off the outlaws under the roof of the sheriff and nobles who couldn’t catch them “With 200 men like these I could have taken Jerusalem.” 

Robin tries to address the court about the plight of the poor but the King cuts him off in mid-sentence. “Well said, well said,” and encourages Robin to feast. The now deposed Sherriff (Nickolas Grace) watches on with his brother Abbot Hugo (Philip Jackson) as the outlaws drink themselves silly. “This is a deliberate humiliation.” Tuck knows the King is pulling rank and testing the loyalty of the nobility. “They’re all for Richard now,” despite them supporting Prince John a week ago. “They’ll buy their way back into favour.” The King’s adviser Hubert Walter (Gary Waldhorn) warns the King his plan to use Robin Hood may backfire. “The wolf has never served the lion.”

The morning after the feast and a hungover Robin Hood is asked to make a choice. A pardon in return for fighting alongside his King in Normandy. Robin accepts, but the others are not so sure. Marian in particular does not fancy waiting for Robin to return from a war, even if her family will have their lands returned to them. Much is sent to fetch Will from Sherwood, but he has been visited by Herne the Hunter (John Albineri) who sent him a message via an arrow fired inches from his head and into the tree he was sitting next to. “Beware the lion.” Will tells Much not to trust the King. 

Back in Nottingham King Richard gathers all the nobles together. “Mercy must be paid for. So must power. So must privilege.”  And he essentially auctions their positions to the highest bidder just as Tuck predicted. Afterwards the outlaws show off their skills at court. Little John fights a soldier with a quarterstaff, but he shrugs off the applause when he wins and knocks back the wine. The string on Robin’s bow breaks during an archery competition. “That was an omen” says Marian. She begs him not to go to Normandy. Nasir quietly slips away. John confronts Robin. “We’re his pets. The wolves clever King Richard trapped and tamed,” and he storms off dragging Martin with him. 

Tuck has been watching the counsel. “The King put the sheriff back. I said he would.” On learning the King intends to raise money by taxing the poor Robin goes to speak to him but his protestations are ignored. “Shall I take away your sword and give you a pig’s bladder?” Having rehired the Sheriff, King Richard asks him to organise the murder of the remaining outlaws. Gisborne is sent to dispatch them, but of course botches the assassination. However, he mortally wounds Marian with an arrow as the outlaws flee the castle. 

In the pre-credits sequence to the opening episode Robin’s father Ailric of Loxley (Wayne Michaels) is ambushed at a stone circle known as Rhiannon’s wheel and killed by the sheriff and his men after leading a rebellion against the Normans. The supernatural aspects of the show are introduced early on establishing Robin of Sherwood as a world where magic exists and prophecies can be fulfilled. Ailric is guarding a silver arrow belonging to Herne which seems to have mythical powers. As he lays dying Ailric mutters the words, “He is coming, the hooded man is coming.” When the Sheriff picks up the arrow it gleams unnaturally and thunder cracks in the sky. 

The finale of The King’s Fool mirrors the opening by returning to Rhiannon’s Wheel, only this time it is Marian who is dying. Ailric hoped to find help from Herne the Hunter, the guardian of the forest. Now he has assumed the mantle the hooded man Robin is able to call on Herne, using his powers to heal Marian. “The wheel turns” and the world spins bringing back the errant outlaws, Little John, Nasir, Will, and Martin, as if they were all summoned to this place. 

Robin of Sherwood felt like a culmination of the work done by Dromgoole, Knight, and Carpenter in their previous shows, plus the influences it took from more recent versions of the legend. Notably Wolfshead: Legend of Robin Hood (John Hough), a failed pilot for a TV series filmed in 1969 but later released in cinemas in 1973, and the BBC show The Legend of Robin Hood (1975) which both presented more grounded low-key versions of the story. Richard Lester’s elegiac Robin and Marian channels the same revisionist spirit American directors were bringing to the Western, with an ageing Robin (Sean Connery) returning after two decades fighting in the Holy Land but despite his best efforts unable to relive the glory days of his youth. 

Goldcrest’s collapse in the mid-80s’ after the costly failures of Absolute Beginners (1986, Julien Temple) and Hugh Hudson’s Revolution (1985) meant the show was never finished although there was an attempt to revive it in the late 2000’s with the original cast and a new script by Richard Carpenter but ITV rejected it outright. The cast did return however for an audio drama Knights of the Apocalypse (2016) based on one of Carpenter’s unused scripts for the original show. 

This post is part of the Muppet Guest Star Blogathon hosted by Gill at RealWeegieMidget and Rebecca at Taking Up Room. Cheryl Ladd guested on episode 3:24 of The Muppet Show Tonight performing a trio of musical numbers. Oddly her starring role in Charlie’s Angels isn’t mentioned despite both shows sharing a home with ABC. Maybe it was Ladd’s choice given she had an album out to promote at the time, though her duet with Miss Piggy I Enjoy Being a Girl does at least give her a chance to practise some 1970s’ karate chopping which does not end well for poor Kermit. It’s her closing ballad though watched by an adoring Fozzie Bear which put me in mind of the Charlie’s Angels episode Harrigan’s Angel in which Ladd’s character teams up with a hapless sad-sack private eye to investigate a warehouse robbery. 

The season 4 line-up now comprised of the only remaining original Angel Jaclyn Smith, newcomer Shelley Hack, and Ladd, though former star Farrah Fawcett would guest star in two episodes. Charlie’s Angels had a decent stable of directors on their roster including Allen Baron (Blast of Silence) and Curtis Harrington (Night Tide, The Killing Kind). Guys who had made some interesting movies back in the day but now worked mainly directing episodic television. Harrigan’s Angel is helmed by Don Chaffey, best known for Jason and the Argonauts and the Disney movie Greyfriars Bobby. As is usually the case with Charlie’s Angels, the episode opens by establishing who the bad guys are. A gang led by Felber (Michael Cavanuagh) and made up of Crail (Michael Baseleon) and Belkin (Robert England) carry out a heist on a warehouse containing computer parts. They pull this off by using a truck which has a replica of the warehouse facade printed on the side to fool the guard manning the security camera.

The warehouse is owned by an electronics firm run by George Starrett (Ed Nelson) who approaches the Townsend Detective Agency for help, despite already having another private investigator working the case. Harrigan (Howard Duff) is a shambles. Arriving late, dishevelled, clearly hungover, and with a story about his car getting stolen, Harrigan mumbles his way through the introductions. “You mean I have to work with girls?” He also sticks his nose into Starrett’s glass and guesses the brand of whiskey AND the mixer. A true sign of the professional drinker. Neither party is happy about working together and the Angels are bemused when Harrigan assumes he’ll be taking lead, but as Bosley (David Doyle) points out they’ll be getting double-time so who cares?

Harrigan wants to brief the Townsend investigators over breakfast and ideally a drink, but Kris (Ladd) takes them to a cafe that doesn’t serve alcohol. This will reoccur throughout the episode as Kris finds ways to keep Harrigan sober. Though he wants to take lead on the case he admits he’s got nothing and his shotgunning “theory of investigation” is really just making notes on pieces of paper. And he’s left those at home in a shoebox he keeps under his bed. He doesn’t even have money for the payphone and has to cadge a dime off Bosley. While he’s making a phone call to the police to see if they found his car Kris tells the others Harrigan reminds her of her father who was a decent guy but also turned to drink in later life. She reckons she can handle him and resolves to keep the Basset Hound-faced Harrigan out of the way while the other Angels and Bosley investigate. Neither Kris nor Harrigan notice when they drive away they are being followed by a pick-up driven by Crail.

Harrigan’s home is a mess. Fast food cartons, empty bottles, and clothes strewn everywhere. It’s clear he lives alone and doesn’t really take much care of himself. There’s a nearly finished bottle of whiskey, (I’m Scottish but will spell whisky with an e because it looks like an American brand) out of which he empties into a glass before remembering his manners and offering Kris a drink. She accepts and takes the triple shot he just poured for himself and reminds him about his notes. Foiled again. Harrigan goes to his bedroom and pulls out an emergency bottle of whiskey and his shoebox. She pours the whiskey into a cup by the sink. Guess he’ll find that later when at some point in the future he decides to do his dishes. Harrigan’s anxious when his phone rings and asks Kris not to answer it, but she’s worried it might be Bosley or the other Angels. Instead it’s the police who have found his car outside a bar called O’Reilly’s. “Strange, I was there last night in fact.” Kris being a private detective deduces somebody probably gave him a lift home. Harrigan reaches into his pocket and finds his car keys.

“You drive, I’ll pour.” Kris lets Harrigan take the wheel so he won’t drink. To make sure she drops the emergency bottle on the road smashing it, much to the old man’s horror. Had they cast a different actor they could have made this pathetic figure more comedic, but there is in veteran actor Howard Duff’s demeanour an element of dignity. Harrigan is a burn-out but we gradually learn there was more to him once. Most of his notes are just scribbled observations or grocery lists for whiskey but Kris finds one that’s interesting. A truck with North Valley Industrial Photo-Engraving stopped outside the warehouse for a minute then left. No delivery, or pick up. And they’ve never been there since. When they visit NVIPE Belkin is behind the counter and politely tells them what the business offers to potential clients but there’s an underlying edge to his conversation. After they leave he phones an unnamed person and warns them “Harrigan and the blonde” paid him a visit. They still haven’t noticed they are being tailed.

Meanwhile Kelly and Tiffany are interviewing the boss of the trucking company whose rig was used in the robbery. It’s Felber, who like Belkin is perfectly friendly, but in a weird bit of deductive reasoning Tiffany thinks he’s dodgy because he did not offer them a coffee. They also inform Felber they will be in charge of security for Starret Industries deliveries from now on. Crail calls in from a payphone outside a fast food place. “Harrigan’s trying to drink a milkshake.”

Crail finally makes his presence known in the valley by trying to run them off the road. Having managed to keep Harrigan sober Kris is back behind the wheel, but it’s the old man who saves the day by using an evasion technique he perfected during WWII in occupied France. Kris makes to go left, but then accelerates hard to the right driving down a side-road and sending Crail in the wrong direction. Back at the Townsend office exposition guy Bosley has run a background check on Felber and found he did time for grand theft auto. Kris and Harrigan explain their outlandish but accurate theory about Belkin using his photo engraving skills to create a replica of the building to fool the camera, but there’s nothing to prove they were involved in the robbery. Harrigan wants to talk to Starret because he believes he’s the lead investigator but Kris is still keeping him out of the way. Kelley and Tiffany are the ones who update Starret, who claims never to have met either Belkin or Felber, but they along with Crail are listening in the next room. Starret ripped off his own company with the help of the robbers. The only reason he approached the Townsend Detective Agency was because the insurers demanded it. “How was I supposed to know that drunk and those three broads would figure it out?” Starret wants them all dealt with. Especially Kris and Harrigan who work too well together.

Kris takes Harrigan home. While putting something away Harrigan knocks over a pile of boxes. Kris notices a bunch of old framed photographs. Harrigan alongside President Eisenhower, a photograph of his late wife, and a commendation from a WWII General. “Can’t figure it can you?” says Harrigan who knows full well Kris has been trying to keep him sober and away from the rest of the team, but he’s not angry. “You made all the right moves.” The bad guys haven’t though. Crail and Starret’s attempts to run Kelly and Tiffany off the road fail when the Angels recognise the pick-up from Harrigan’s description and turn on their would be pursuers approaching them with guns drawn. Crail folds immediately not wanting to face an accessory to murder charge and warns the Angels about the impending hit on their friends. Action finales tend to be bloodless in early 80s’ TV show and the showdown takes place without any serious injuries. Harrigan is already out of the door when the warning call comes and he’s wounded but not hurt. Kris knocks Felber over the balcony and gets the drop on Belkin before he can finish off Harrigan.

Charlie’s Angels was beginning to fall away in the ratings by the end of season 4. The show missed Kate Jackson’s off-kilter charisma and her replacement Shelley Hack was a little too similar to Cheryl Ladd in appearance and style. But Harrigan’s Angel is a high point. Howard Duff and Ladd (as the bad guys pointed out earlier) do work very well together. If anything Harrigan’s Angel functions as a better backdoor pilot to a potential spin-off than the later season 4 episode Toni’s Boys, which introduced a trio of gender-flipped sweater-wearing planks led by Barbara Stanwyck. The epilogue sees Harrigan receiving his missing car and promising to stay on the wagon. The script might make it seem like everything’s nicely wrapped up and Harrigan will be fine but the actors play it differently. They might say the words that promise a feel-good ending, but their eyes are telling us something else. Harrigan won’t be sober for long and both of them know it.

Gil from RealWeegieMidgetReviews was kind enough to mention my blog on her site and set down a list of questions for me to answer.

1. Have you ever met a celebrity somewhere random?

Not really. Though I did once serve Alan Titchmarsh when I was waiting tables a few years ago. Very charming. Can see why all the ladies like him.

2. Have you ever had a celebrity write to you in response to a fan letter?

No. Have never written a fan letter. Did get a thank you from Robin Askwith on Twitter for identifying an actor in a photo he’d met briefly in a bar in 1986. Turned out it was former Colbys star Joseph Campanella.

3. What’s your favourite advert with an actor or actress?

I guess you could make a case The Hire (2000) shorts starring Clive Owen are adverts as they were funded by BMW, but they feel more like short films with product placement which isn’t really the same. I remember seeing Brad Pitt in a Levi’s 501 ad back in 1990 and thinking he’ll do all right for himself.

4. If you could ghost-write a celebrity’s autobiography with their permission who would it be?

George Lazenby had a much more interesting career than people give him credit for. Becoming Bond (2017, Josh Greenbaum) was fine but didn’t seem have much interest in the man himself or his career after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969, Peter Hunt). I’m fascinated by him quitting that role to make Universal Soldier (1971, Cy Endfield), an anti-war movie about a spy who drops out and starts hanging out with left-wing activists. I also feel the giallo Who Saw Her Die? ((Aldo Lado), co-starring with Angela Mao in the Hong-Kong martial arts movie Stoner (1974, Feng Huang), and Saint Jack (1979, Peter Bogdanovich) makes for an interesting 1970s’. There’s also the time he spent with Bruce Lee before his untimely death working on a proposed follow-up to Enter the Dragon (1973, Robert Clouse), and essentially playing Bond again on TV in Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E and the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode Diamonds Aren’t Forever. Mostly I just want to talk to him about his appearance on the fashion house/spy show Cover Up.

5. Have you ever been on telly or in a movie?

No.

6. Who was your first film or TV love?

I honestly can’t recall the first. It was so long ago. Probably Georgina Hayes on Grange Hill, or Abby on Howard’s Way.

7. You are allowed to snog, marry or avoid three movie or TV stars.. who are they?

I would prefer to avoid all TV and movie stars completely.

8. If you could give out an Oscar which category would it be for?

It would be a Lifetime Achievement Award for Albert Pyun.

9. Who would you like to accompany to the Oscars?

To be honest I prefer being at home and tweeting about them, but if I had to go I’d like to go with the guy from the law firm who’s responsible for keeping the envelopes with the names of the winners. I just want to see how stressful that job is now after the Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway slip up a few years ago.

10. Which film would you watch again and again?

I will never grow tired of Deathstalker II (1987, Jim Wynorski).

11. What’s your favourite TV Movie?

A bleak but very funny production written by Alan Bennett for Screen Two called The Insurance Man (1986, Richard Eyre) which is loosely based on the life and work of Franz Kafka. The late Robert Hines stars as a young man living in pre-WWI Prague who develops a mysterious blue tinged skin infection on his chest while working in a factory and is sent to a government building to meet a clerk called Franz Kafka (Daniel Day-Lewis) to see if his condition makes him eligible for insurance. There he finds he’s one of many claimants waiting around the labyrinthian hallways, or being sent from one office to the next because they have the wrong form. All he wants to do is find out what’s wrong with him but his journey through the building turns into a nightmarish series of encounters with contemptuous bureaucrats and people who have become slightly unhinged by the whole experience. Made around the same time Day-Lewis broke through with My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, Stephen Frears), and A Room With A View (1985, James Ivory) and though he only appears in a few scenes he’s incredibly charismatic. I’m also very fond of a TV movie called Nick Knight (1989, Farhad Mann) starring Rick Springfield as a vampire cop in Los Angeles.