Television
Black magic
Alexander Chancellor
As Robin Hood may not have existed anyway, there is no good reason why anybody should not embellish his legend as he thinks fit. But Richard Carpenter's ver- sion of the story for HTV, Robin of Sher- wood, is nevertheless extraordinary. Robin is no longer a cheerful, philanthropic outlaw dressed in Lincoln green. He is somebody altogether deeper, dressed in brown. What precisely he is up to it is dif- ficult to tell. Perhaps it will become clearer later on, but in the first two-hour episode of the five-part series, which was shown on ITV last Saturday, he appeared to be some sort of pseudo-Messiah. We are told that his coming was prophesied 600 years beforehand by the monk Gildas, who in real life was an obscure sixth-century saint and the first British writer of history (the author of De Excidio et Britanniae Con- questu). Although Gildas appears to have had no connections with Nottinghamshire, but to have spent his life roaming about in the west of Britain, he is credited by Mr Carpenter with this prediction of future events in Sherwood: 'In the days of the Lion spawned of the Devil's Brood, the Hooded Man shall come to the forest. There he will meet Herne the Hunter, Lord of the Trees, and be his son and do his bid- ding. The powers of Light and Darkness shall be strong within him. And the guilty shall tremble.'
The prophesy comes true. Robin, now menacingly known as 'the Hooded Man' or more whimsically as 'Robin in the Hood', duly appears as the orphaned son of a Saxon rebel who, at the beginning of the drama, is spectacularly put to death by
The Spectator 5 May 19g4 Norman archers in the manner of St Sebas- tian. Transferred for the purposes of the story from Windsor Great Park to Sher' wood Forest, Herne the Hunter eventuallY turns up wearing a stag's-head mask, which h. e takes off whenever he gets bored of be' mg spooky and feels like a chat. Herne tells Robin he is to be the saviour of 'children with swollen bellies in ditches' — 'they ail wait; you are their hope'. When Robin asks later for more specific instructions, hells simply told to 'act without thinking' ' follows this advice with great success, con- sistently getting the better of all the Nor- man oppressors — among them the Sherifi of Nottingham (Nickolas Grace) and the Baron de Belleme (Anthony Valentine), an evil expert in black magic who reminds °"5 of a villain out of Dr Who. Robin is aSSISte, by a magic sword and by an ancient 5111e` arrow resembling a miniature Cruise missile. This, as the Sheriff of Nottingham helpfully helpfully explains to a puzzled enquirer' is Encult object, mlikae giaesceptre or a cross, nihh an One is tempted to think that Mr Careen: ter wouldn't have introduced all this mum° jumbo into the story if he hadn't wanted tu make some symbolic points about nets colonialism or the Nottinghamshire Mule.'
Porolicpye. perhaps theif this was Common mAegsrsiacguelt.tflorara tunately remains obscure. We are left °alto totally ridiculous epic that is great furi_s watch. Robin (Michael Praed), who s.ee":11- as perplexed as the rest of us by defined mission, looks like a Ins 1,110 pop star.wrin has decided to 'find' himself; but he Is an eager and athletic performer with a. 1 o ft t innocent charm. The photographY is ° e el. beautiful, and the action scenthes re e.x. of alerneth,erwy and equestrianism. on h skills The Channel 4's Africa, a new e1$ fable series which began on Monday, the ant d' Basil Davidson sets out to °lei!, prove any ideas that the Africans are! Par°. ple without history or culture. He is Pnot Ocularly concerned that regard the ancient Egyptians as la 1
somehow less African than other the
peoples of the continent and thus wastes; rather a lot of time persuading us.howr,", o s they were. Because the civilisation r we should. e.ng Pharaohs was infinitely the most ires ever to have existed in Africa, Mr DavidsonDa video° is eager to incorporate it into the e of that the black man is just as cal first first great things as the white man. 1ln. tuibthe episode, he also showed us rock p ain Zimbabwe and the Algerian desert'.:.sed pyramid n aste r tombs fs co fh Kush ut isahn and mt bh rr Very interesting they were too; but which perhaps dangers in his apprna°11', other, seems to be a jump from one isolatenuo pie of artistic achievement to an w _,h. cracking up each one for all a is Europe There is an implied attempt to iPEurope cultural achievements of Africa anu d to ofanil;ananedquifalmfrooritianvgi,dswohnicrnheirsody0w7al: ertsaeteso convince us that the black and whit
are equal in their potential, does he need to go to so much trouble?
For those who saw Muhammad Ali on TV-am this week, perhaps he does. The former boxer looked and sounded like a man who had suffered serious brain damage. But he did manage to make one excellent joke at the expense of the inter- viewer, John Stapleton. Mr Stapleton had asked him whether it was true that his mother had been an 'important figure' in his life. Mr Ali looked surprised and slightly shocked. 'Important nigger?' he asked. That is the way to deal with these people. i I had missed the first four programmes in Beryl Bainbridge's English Journey (B.13C2), but having finally caught up with it this week for her visit to Bradford I am overcome with enthusiasm. How clever and funny she is! How brilliant she is at making three talk! There are still, thankfully, Inree programmes to go.
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