Is the woodland setting of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, the place to put on experimental and iconoclastic theatre?  Maybe but not on the back of England’s most cherished legend of Robin Hood.  Ignoring 1938 Errol Flynn and 1955 Richard Greene, there was much loved Michael Praed as Robin of Loxley in Robin of Sherwood (1984-5) and Kevin Costner in the wildly romantic Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves  (1991).  That last movie had Bryan Adam’s “Everything I Do, I Do It for You” and the late Alan Rickman’s Sheriff’s threats with a spoon.  1989 to 1994 saw the wonderful Kate Lonergan as Maid Marian, leader of the Merry Men while Robin wasn’t up to the fight.  

I should have smelled a rat when I discovered Carl Grose the writer was deputy artistic director of Kneehigh, a company which for me has missed the target more often than hitting it.  His past productions have included Dead Dog in a Suitcase and 49 Donkeys Hanged, their titles sounding not like plays I want to expose my grandchildren to.  

The King here is not Richard the Lionheart fighting the Crusades with Blondel the musician, nor Bad King John but Paul Hunter in nightshirt stuck in a cage high up in the metal trees of Sherwood Forest.  He is the captive of Baldwyn (Alex Mugnaioni) the supposed sheriff whose wife Marian (Ellen Robertson) is the ace archer.  Some of the roles are cross gender, for instance Little Joan and Mary Tuck.