Robin Hood & The Tanner

Robin Hood and the Tanner was based on a play from Kempsford, Gloucestershire and the Ballad of Robin Hood; it was first performed on Saturday, 18^th December, 1976 at Harefield Hall Banquet and was to become one of the key plays in our repertoire, affecting the way we tackled plays in the future and taking us to a wider appreciative audience as a result of performing at Whitby Folk Festival.

The play deviated from what one might expect of a Robin Hood play by having a “camp” Little John and featuring an actor playing an actor!! Jim Mayer brought his talents, previously seen as Dr. David Bellamy, to become a ham actor playing the part of Arthur Abland, the Tanner. When he was finally “killed”, he wouldn’t stay lying down – instead he kept “resurrecting” himself, whilst demonstrating his great acting skills with dying speeches from the world of theatre in a Shakespearean style – these Jim had cleverly cobbled together, mis-quotes and all, into amusing, nay rude, little speeches until finally laid to rest by Little John’s handbag….”a handbag!!”. The play concluded with Little John singing “Here we come a-Wassailing” – this was accompanied on penny whistle by Dominic Ward, as Little Devil Doubt, until he left the team in 1980.

The following black and white pictures were taken at the Seige of Carlisle, Bitts Park, Carlisle on Sunday 7^th August, 1977

Arthur Abland: Jim Mayer, in mid-over dramatic speech, whilst losing patience are Robin Hood: Graham Bickerdike, Fool: Dave Dearlove and, more interested in his hair, Little John: John Burrell.

The cure with the Fool: Dave Dearlove, Arthur Abland: Jim Mayer, Jack Finney: Chas Marshall, with the “large wolf’s tooth” and the Doctor: Stuart Rankin.

This version of the Robin Hood play gained us wider recognition as a team – we took the play “busking” on the final day of the 1977 Whitby Folk Festival, Friday, 26^th August. The street and pub performances went down very well and some of the New Victory Band were very complimentary about our style. At the final Ceilidh that night at Whitby Spa theatre, there came a point where the bands had to change over and as New Victory had quite a lot of equipment to set up, they suggested we should fill in the gap with our play. It went down a storm with the crowd and we received an excellent review in Karl Dallas’s national folk magazine Folk Review.

This shows the play as performed at that time, on tour at the Ossett Folk Festival on Saturday, 7^th October, 1978 with Robin Hood: Graham Bickerdike, Fool: Dave Dearlove, Doctor: Stuart Rankin, Little John: John Burrell, Jack Finney: Dennis Ward and Arthur Abland: Jim Mayer lying slain.

At another Ceildih for the Whitby Festival, at the Spa Theatre on Tuesday, 24^th August, 1982, we even slotted in a Rock’n’Roll spot; as Arthur Abland wore “Blue Suede Shoes” we worked the song of the same name into the death scene, aided by a piano player from the Peace Artists and Jim Mayer on drums, John Burrell did the Elvis impersonation whilst Robin Hood: Graham Bickerdike pulled his wife, Kath, from the audience and launched in to a five-star bop routine which brought the house down!

For the Christmas period 1981, when Jim Mayer had left the area and his availability was limited, Stuart decided that we should modify the play and change parts around. This proved to be not as funny and quite frankly, bewildering to both audience and particpiants, and was dropped after 8 performances.

A picture of this version does survive, taken at the Borough Bailiff, home of the Folk Club in Knaresborough on Saturday, 19^th December, 1981. It shows Friar Tuck: John Hutt, Little John: Henry Ayrton, Robin Hood: Graham Bickerdike, Jack Finney: John Burrell, Doctor: Stuart Rankin and Arthur Abland: Vince Doemling.

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