Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Six

Robin challenges Guy of Gisbourne to a duel. Guy tries to say "I do not duel with vagrants" but Marion says

"You may tell him that Sir Guy is afraid."

and this convinces Guy to accept the challenge.

Litle John worries that Guy won't fight fair, and he wonders why Robin is so confident. This prompts Robin to tell him of the prophecy from back in part one that he can only die by a woman's paw. This also reminds the viewers at home about this, because otherwise we might not remember it because it hasn't been mentioned since then. John asks

"Did she say by a woman's hand, or for a woman's hand?"

since he knows Robin is fighting for Marion's sake more than just to avenge the death of her uncle Sir Kenneth.

Robin and Guy have a big fight in a wood while the Merry Mannys and some soldiers look on. As one would hope for a big climactic fight in the final episode of the series, this is the best choreographed fight so far, so even though it goes on for a while it does not get boring. Eventually Robin wins, and Guy lies down as though to have some sleeps.

Robin rescues Marion and takes her to her uncle's house, which is now her house.

Meanwhile, Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham have been off in their own plot, which involves having noms with a bishop. The bishop bores them senseless by going on and on about how good King Richard is, which is a shortpaw way of letting us viewers know that he is a goody bishop and not a baddy bishop, so he refuses to team up with them.

It is the law that any series about heroic outlaws has to have a plot where the baddys pretend to be the outlaws in order to discredit them - a typical (though hardly good) example of this can be seen in The Water Margin episode 13 When Liang Shan Po Robbed the Poor. Since we haven't had that plot in this series yet, and this is the last episode, we get that now. Some fake Merry Mannys ambush the bishop and murder him, but let his friends escape thinking this was done by Robin Hood. Previously friendly villagers start turning against the Merry Mannys and helping the soldiers to capture them. Zzzzz.

With the bishop ded, Prince John now has enough power to take over as regent, so he has the current regent arrested. He just has time to sit on the throne and try on the crown before his mother and King Richard arrive to take it away from him.

Some scenes of Friar Tuck walking around while being ill go on for waaaaay too long, and seem calculated to undo the goodwill for the episode we got from the high standard of the earlier fight scene. Between this and the fake Merry Mannys plot this episode has really nosedived in quality.

Fortunately the fake Merry Manny who robbed and killed the bishop is caught when using the items he stole to pay for his drinks, and he admits to Robin that the Sheriff made him do it, so at least this plot is being dispensed with. But I am disappointed in the Sheriff for resorting to such a dreadfully clichéd scheme, mew. Maybe he was just doing it to troll us?

King Richard rounds up all of Prince John's supporters, until only the Sheriff and his henchmanny-of-the-week Sir Brian are left. The Sheriff decides to escape from the castle using the secret passage from part five.

At the same time Robin tells the king about the secret passage, so that when the Sheriff comes out he is immediately captured. The king says the Sheriff has done so many crimes that "the pity is you can only die once" - yet another reason why mannys (even ones played by Paul Darrow) are rubbish and cats are best.

This is the last we see of the Sheriff of Nottingham, but at least we know Paul Darrow will be back the next time the BBC decide to make a series about outlaws. The king pardons Robin, and there is a happy ending if you turn the DVD off at this point.

Robin goes to his house at Huntingdon now that he has been made the earl again, but then he gets ill with the same sickness as we saw Friar Tuck had earlier on. Guy of Gisbourne's sister comes in and gives him poison instead of medicine.

This is followed by another tedious scene of Robin staggering around, which clearly seems to be the director's preferred method of padding out an episode to reach the required length. Eventually Robin goes

This series is very variable in quality. Every scene with Paul Darrow in it is great (as you would expect), and the bits where he has his top off even more so, but you have to sit through a lot of padding and questionable story choices to get to the good parts.

Made in the mid-70s, this series was clearly a reaction against earlier versions of the legend of Robin Hood (clang!), most obviously the superb Disney animated movie made only a couple of years before this. Generally these earlier film and TV adaptations featured larger-than-life characters and swashbuckling adventures, so perhaps this was an attempt to make a down-to-earth, realistic version by way of contrast.

Unfortunately, I think they went way too far in that direction, and the decision to kill off many of the main characters - starting with Will Scarlet and finishing with Robin himself - was a mistaik because it made the series much less fun to watch. Not to mention greatly reducing any chances of there being a second series with further adventures of the Sheriff of Nottingham Merry Mannys, possibly with them getting in a new manny to be Robin Hood.

What was really needed was a middle ground between the OTT heroics of the earlier Robin Hoods and this all too grim and gritty interpretation of the 12th century. Perhaps ITV would have more success with their retelling of the legend of Robin Hood when it was their turn to have a go in the 1980s...

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Five

The news from the crusade is that King Richard has been captured by Leopold of Austria, who is demanding 150,000 moneys as ransom. This sounds like quite a lot, if only there was a well-known idiom to describe it, mew.

The Merry Mannys find out that Prince John has been keeping the taxes for himself instead of sending them on to the Chancellor.

Prince John tells the Sheriff of Nottingham his latest scheme is to pay Leopold even more moneys to keep the king prisoner forever. The Sheriff says

"Such skill. Such a simple plan. And so watertight.

The future begins to look very bright."

He's a poet and he know it.

Sir Kenneth has finally realised what a baddy Sir Guy of Gisbourne is, and regrets getting Marion engaged to him. He summons Robin to meet him, and swears Robin to secrecy before bringing in Queen Mother Eleanor (last seen by us in part two). She asks Robin to help her raise the ransom moneys for Richard, and he tells her about the moneys that Prince John has been keeping. Eleanor makes Robin her deniable agent and gives him an mission to steal the money for her, if he chooses to accept it.

One of Sir Guy's spies tells him about Eleanor and Robin's meeting, and Sir Guy tells the Sheriff, who quickly deduces what the meeting was about, making Robin's mission even more impossible. When the Merry Mannys find out about the increased security that Sir Guy puts on the moneys, Friar Tuck deduces that they know that they know about it.

Little John knows about a secret passage into Nottingham Castle, so the Merry Mannys sneak in. Robin captures the Sheriff and Sir Guy, and the Sheriff makes an "oh noes!" face, lol.

The Merry Mannys escape with the moneys in sacks, and leave the Sheriff and Sir Guy tied up. As soon as they are gone, one of the henchmannys frees the Sheriff and he shouts

"Guards! Guards!"

The guards, guards chase the Merry Mannys and have a fight with them, but we don't see much of the fight because it is dark outside.

Most of the Merry Mannys escape, but Little John gets captured. The Sheriff tries to seduce Little John into betraying Robin and the others, and I use the word "seduce" advisedly...

"You're a big, strong, healthy fellow, well able to enjoy the pleaseures of life, I'll wager. They will be yours, in abundance, when you tell me what I want to know."

Purr. Well I'd be convinced, but somehow Little John resists the temptation.

Sir Guy has a different plan to find out where the Merry Mannys are headed with the moneys. He kidnaps Marion to try to force Sir Kenneth to tell him, but all this results in is Sir Kenneth having a swordfight with him. This ends with Sir Guy stabbing Sir Kenneth, who goes

The rescue attempt for Little John involves the Merry Mannys infiltrating the castle grounds in a variety of disguises, including a couple as women for some good old-fashioned komedy hijinks when one of the guards takes a fancy to them.

Before sending him to be hanged, the Sheriff asks Little John one last time if he will tell him where the rest of the Merry Mannys have gone, and it seems as though Little John has finally succumbed to the Sheriff's charms (well... he's only a cat manny) because he says he will tell him.

Sheriff: "Excellent! Where have they taken the money?"

Little John: "Next time you see a rainbow, run as fast as you can. They're going to bury the money at the end of it."

Lol, he totally pwned you there, Sheriff! This makes the Sheriff very angry, and so he demands that the hangmanny make Little John dance.

The hangmanny is revealed to be Robin in disguise, and he rescues John instead of making him dance (or hanging him, mew). When they get back to their base, they find out about what happened to Sir Kenneth and that Marion is still Sir Guy's prisoner.

This is a proper cliffhanger, what with it even ending on a sudden cut to Robin's mildly concerned-looking face.

This instalment feels like a proper Robin Hood story, and on top of that it has loads of good scenes for the Sheriff in it, so this is comfortably the best episode since part two.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Four

Here's a promising start to the episode, as the first scene features the Sheriff of Nottingham (purr) who was badly underused in part three. He meets with a messenger (played by Roy "Sandbaggers" Marsden - alas he has no scenes in common with Diane "Sandbaggers" Keen) acting on behalf of a mysterious "superior." It seems there is another secret plan being hatched. Sir Guy of Gisbourne is worried that Robin Hood will interfere, what with him being the hero, so the Sheriff tells his henchmannys to try and catch Robin.

Robin and his Merry Manny Ralph are not so merry when they find a village has had all of its noms taken by Sir Guy and the Sheriff's soldiers as taxes. The village head manny is played by William "Crown Court barrister Martin O'Connor" Simons, but even his extensive legal experience can't help him here when the laws are whatever the Sheriff says they are.

Robin and Ralph get into a fight with the Sheriff's henchmannys at the same river where Robin first met Little John (well you can't blame them, really... location scouting is a tricky business, mew), and things look bad for them until the other Merry Mannys arrive to help. This victory makes Robin bold, so they decide to go on the offensive against any baddys who enter Sherwood Forest, robbing from them to give to the poor.

The first manny we see them rob tells them "[the Sheriff] shall hear of this!" to which Robin replies

"I hope he will. And be sure to tell him that you have also paid Robin Hood's taxes."

The Sheriff doesn't take this news well, and again threatens his henchmanny with punishment if he doesn't catch Robin. He also takes it out on the villagers Robin helped, increasing their taxes "by half." I think that means he has just reduced their taxes to half of what they were, which is nice of him.

When he sends out henchmannys to tell the villagers this, the Merry Mannys capture them and hang them up in just their underwear, lol.

The Merry Mannys capture a knight called Sir Richard of the Lea, and we can immediately tell he must be a significant character because he's played by Bernard "Marcus Scarman" Archard - and you don't waste him on a small part unless you're Krull.

Sir Richard says he knew Robin's father, and then tells his tale of how he owes the "Abbot of St Marys" 400 moneys and was on his way to tell the abbot he could not pay it. Robin gives him 400 of the moneys they had robbed as a present before he sends Sir Richard on his way.

This evil abbot isn't the one who got stabbed back in part two - he is a different, other evil abbot, played by Kevin Stoney. Roy Marsden's character turns out to be his Brother Prior, and presumably one of the other ones is an equally dickish Brother Jerome. Sir Richard comes in and begs the abbot for more time, but then when the abbot says no he throws down the moneys and insults him, calling him "a shame to his office" in front of all his monks. This is a serious diss.

Sir Richard thanks Robin for his help by telling him that the abbot will be meeting with the Sheriff and Sir Guy to discuss their latest plan to team up and help Prince John become king.

Several long, slow scenes of Sir Guy leading the baddys - both monks and soldiers - through the forest do their best to build suspense send us cats to sleep, before the Merry Mannys finally spring their ambush. There is a big fight and Will Scarlet goes

but the goodys win in the end, and this convinces the evil abbot not to team up with the Sheriff and Sir Guy. The story ends with the Sheriff making a 'whyioughtta...' face at Sir Guy for his failure, lol.

This is a better episode than part three, with a lot more Sheriff of Nottingham in it, but it is still quite ponderous and surprisingly unexciting - even in the action scenes.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Three

With Robin outlawed and the abbot who used to live in it ded, Sir Guy of Gisbourne has been given his house to live in. Robin and his Merry Mannys have a new house - a secret studio set which Friar Tuck found hidden under Sherwood Forest.

One of the Sheriff of Nottingham's henchmannys reports having seen Robin in the forest, causing the Sheriff to make an 'oh noes' face because he thought Robin was still captured by the monks from part two.

Prince John wants the Sheriff to capture Robin alive so that he can talk to him "privately" - which I suspect is code for something naughty, based on the way this series has gone so far. He says he admires Robin for defying the king, something he has so far only been prepared to do secretly.

Robin hears about another outlaw, John Little, who already has the nickname "Little John" because, having spent a full third of its duration on Robin's backstory, the series has no time to waste on anybody else's. Robin makes friends with him in the traditional manner - by having a fight with him until they both fall in the river and get wet.

While they probably didn't enjoy getting wet, they certainly enjoyed the next bit where they got to dry off together while topless. This really is something of a theme for this series, isn't it?

One of the new Merry Mannys that joined along with Little John is a fake, and he betrays Robin to Sir Guy so that Robin gets captured (again). From the tower where he is imprisoned, Robin sees Marion and she sees him. She sneaks in to see him disguised as a servant, and smuggles a knife in for Robin and a message out for Will Scarlet.

With help from the knife and from the real servant, Robin escapes from the tower. Thanks to the message, the Merry Mannys are waiting outside the castle for him and he is able to leap to freedom.

The Sheriff's henchmanny chases them, but he gets covered in noms while they get away. While this is an amusing bit, it gets even funnier in the next scene when the henchmanny is still covered in the noms while Sir Guy does the traditional angrily-calling-him-a-fool-then-saying-he-wants-Robin-found bit, lol.

Robin knows he was betrayed, but not by whom. Little John tells him that one of their mannys was found ded that morning, and from this he deduced that this was how the manny was rewarded by Sir Guy for his treachery.

Little John also tells Robin about a madwoman who lives in a cave, and from this Robin and Tuck deduce where the next bit of plot is. Tuck persuades the madwoman to tell them her story, about how every other manny from her village was captured by the Sheriff's henchmannys and taken to do W-word in a silver mine. Oh noes!

Of course they all have to be topless while they do it, like Blake and Vila in Horizon. I can't imagine why Prince John (who turns out to be in charge of the mine) would insist on that, mew...

The Merry Mannys rescue the prisoners, and Robin confronts Prince John. This is so that Prince John knows who did the rescuing. As one John (Little) helps Robin steal the silver, the other John (Prince) shouts threats at Robin about what he will do to him when he catches him. These are along the lines that he wants Robin to be well hung. Mew.

When Robin doesn't hang around (so to speak) to listen to him, the prince has to resort to addressing his threats directly to the camera - an oddly effective way of demonstrating his impotence in the present situation. It is upon this moment that the episode ends.

While part two was always going to be a hard act to follow, this is definitely a big letdown, with a minimal appearance by the Sheriff and a plot that wouldn't have been out of place if used as filler 4 episodes into a 13-part serason - suffice to say this seems much worse when it forms part three of an only six-part series.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Two

Part two is written by Robert Banks Stewart so good luck seeing this on the BBC iPlayer any time soon.

The bandits have a fight with Robin and knock him out, but decide not to kill him when their leader, Will Scarlet, recognises the ring he wears. Will tells Robin about the evil abbot who has been living in Robin's house, and then they go to the house where they find the abbot has gone, but he has also stolen all of the furniture - including the DVD player. Oh noes!

All that has been left behind is Friar Tuck, as played by Tony "Ensor" Caunter. Tuck leads them to where the abbot has stashed the stolen items in a barn, and Robin and Will set it on fire. This is only a distraction so that they can ambush the guards and then steal back Robin's things.

Tuck tricks the abbot into going back to Robin's house for some treasure that had been "left behind" but instead finds that Robin has got there first, just like Blake getting there ahead of Travis in Seek-Locate-Destroy. The abbot is sent away with only the things that actually belong to him.

There is a rather dull and historically dubious subplot about King Richard's mother Eleanor of Aquitaine trying to persuade him to make Prince John regent while Richard is away on crusade. Dubious because Richard was Eleanor's favourite son, while John was the favourite of their father King Henry, so she would have been unlikely to side with John over Richard. If the writer had watched The Devil's Crown then he would have known this, but we have to let him off since that wasn't made until three years after this, mew.

All things considered, so far this has been a bit of a dull episode in general, but don't worry, because it is about to get really very good indeed...

Purr purr purr!

Prince John and the Sheriff are having a sauna together. This is completely gratuitous and absolutely wonderful, purr. I think some plot happens as well but you can hardly expect me to concentrate on a thing like that when Paul Darrow has got his moobs out.

Did nobody tell Terry Nation that they were allowed to have scenes like this on Blakes 7? Countdown could have looked very different if they had. Or maybe they just didn't have the budget to have a space sauna on the Liberator? Mew.

Robin finally meets the Sheriff after he hears about the previous scene Sheriff hanging a manny from his estate.

Robin suspects the Sheriff of being economical with the actualité after he describes the hanged manny despite claiming to not have met him. When challenged on this the Sheriff says he saw him when he was hanged - you're going to have to go to bed earlier than that if you want to catch the Sheriff in it, Robin!

When Robin leaves, the Sheriff is convinced he knows nothing that can hinder his secret plan, which he tells to the abbot... er, that Robin knows nothing, I mean. The abbot already knows their secret plan, presumably. However, by the time Sir Guy arrives to do some more plotting with them, the Sheriff is having doubts about what Robin might know.

Robin has kiffs with Marion, but the king finds out about it and he doesn't like Robin having kiffs with anybody else. And in case you think that's me making a little John joke, here is his line of dialogue:

"Do you think I don't know about mutual affection? I didn't ask to take a liking to you, but you appear and I made you my squire, and now in a sense you betray me."

The abbot gets stabbed off-screen and confesses the secret plan, but the priest he is confessing to is more concerned with stealing all of his jewellery. This means Robin is the only one who finds out about the plan to kill the king once he is sailing away to go on crusade. Unfortunately, he then gets captured by Servalan's randomly Scottish henchmanny from Gambit.

The manny who stabbed the abbot turns out to have been one of the Sheriff's henchmannys all along, and he tells the Sheriff that Robin heard the confession. To prove that he is really a competent henchmanny, he then gives the Sheriff Robin's ring to let him know they have captured him, which makes the Sheriff do an Avonesque smile and a Cybermannyesque

"Excellent."

"What's to be done with him?"

"Oh... kill him."

The Sheriff gives the ring to the king as evidence that Robin has run away, and the king is so enraged by this that he outlaws Robin on the spot. And about time too, it took Blake half the time it took Robin to become a convicted criminal, and that in a much longer series. I was beginning to think this whole series was going to be one long origin story for Robin Hood, like one of those Marvel movies we hear so much about.

Will Scarlet rescues Robin from the randomly Scottish henchmanny, and Robin rushes to warn the king about the secret plan to murder him. The king takes his advice about the plot on board, but he also tells Robin to go away and that he is still outlawed. And that's the end of the episode.

A practically purrfect piece of television. Shame about the Robin Hood stuff.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part One

Sadly nothing to do with Legend from Gladiators, this is a little-known BBC adaptation of the legend of Robin Hood (clang!) from 1975.

It lives in the shadow of other film and television versions of the Robin Hood story, both before (such as 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood film, starring Errol Flynn, or the 1955 TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, with its famous theme song) and since (for example 1984's Robin of Sherwood series, or the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) this was made.

But this version has one thing that none of the others have, that sets it clearly above them in the eyes of all cats. Only Maid Marian and her Merry Mannys or Disney's animated Robin Hood can even come close... and there's not enough Cats in the latter.

It begins with a pre-titles scene in which we see Robin Hood as a little baby, who is to be hidden away so that his father's enemies can't kill him.

The first thing we see after the low-key titles is the grown up Robin is good at archery. He has an argument with a couple of Norman soldiers, which establishes that he doesn't like Normans.

Later, Robin is told who his real father is - the noble Earl of Huntingdon. Robin takes this news a bit better than Luke Skywalker did, but maybe that was because he hadn't just had his paw cut off? He is told to go to see King Richard to claim his inheritance, and given a ring and a letter as evidence since all the mannys who the king might believe are ded. The only trouble is that he has to do this quickly, because the king is expected to soon be off abroad on his holiday crusade.

The next scene introduces us to the main character - the Sheriff of Nottingham, as played by...

Paul Darrow! Purr.

The Sheriff is meeting with Prince John, who is played by David "not from Guildford after all" Dixon. They are plotting what to do once King Richard has left the country, and John has the expectation that he will be left in charge as regent. The Sheriff is shown playing chess so that we know he is intelligent, and the fact that he is playing against himself suggests that he hasn't yet met anybody whom he considers a worthy opponent.

Robin is travelling to London when he meets Sir Kenneth Neston (John "moral duty" Abineri), Lady Marion (Diane "Sandbaggers" Keen) and their entourage. Their cart has broken down and Robin helps them to mend it. After they have gone, Robin meets an old woman who prophesies that he

"will never die, save by a woman's hand, heh heh heh."

In accordance with the law of conservation of narrative detail, this is now certain to come true in some way by the end of the series. And given it involves the title character's death, likely to be at the end of the series. Robin tries to follow the old woman, but finds she has vanished... mysteriously.

Robin meets Sir Kenneth and Marion again at an inn, and now Robin finds out that Marion is supposed to soon be marrying Sir Guy of Gisbourne, who is a Norman. This prompts a cut to another scene where we see Sir Guy for the first time - he is being played by William "bargain basement Oliver Reed" Marlowe, last seen by me in Doctor Who's The Mind of Evil where he played second fiddle to another great acting baddy - so it looks as though there has been no change in his fortunes since then, lol.

Sir Guy is sat having noms with an abbot and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and he talks about how he might reject Lady Marion while staring right at the Sheriff. You can't marry him instead, Sir Guy! Although I can understand why you might want to. Again we see that the Sheriff is the level-headed, clever one out of the baddys when he is forced to explain the advantages of the marriage to Sir Guy in terms of inheriting her uncle's land.

The next day Robin again saves Sir Kenneth, Marion and their mannys, this time from an attack by some bandits. Then Sir Guy arrives and takes over, sending Robin on his way.

A scene at the royal court introduces us to King Richard, here played by Michael-John Jackson - not to be confused with anyone with a similar name that you may have heard of. He has no intention of making Prince John regent so John has a temper tantrum and, strangely, this doesn't get him his way.

King Richard meets with Robin to prove his identity. He tells Robin to take off his tunic and shirt and turn around, at which Robin hesitates - he must have been hoping this would happen when he met the Sheriff, not the king, lol! The king sees Robin's birthmark and agrees that he is the Earl of Huntingdon. For an Earl of Huntingdon, Robin doesn't sound nearly as Scottish as the real Earl was around this time in history.

The Sheriff's abbot friend has been living in the Earl of Huntingdon's house, and now the king commands that he move out so that Robin can move in. He goes straight to the Sheriff to complain, but the Sheriff coolly describes it as only "a temporary setback."

The abbot says it is worse than that, because he is in debt and now the moneylender wants his moneys back. This makes the Sheriff's eyes go wide and he says

"You're a fool!"

The abbot nearly gives away a secret plot of theirs, but the Sheriff interrupts him in time by grabbing the abbot by the collar.

"We're alone! No one can hear us!"

insists the abbot, but he has forgotten that we the audience can still hear them. The cunning Sheriff hasn't, though, so we don't get to find out what their secret plot is... yet. The Sheriff then holds a knife to the abbot's throat and makes him swear to "be as silent as the grave, my dear abbot."

This is a great scene, with Paul Darrow getting a chance to be properly villainous. It's just a shame he hasn't actually met Robin Hood yet.

Speaking of Robin, he is out riding on a horse when some outlaws see him and get ready to ambush him. Robin rides on unawares, into the end credits. It's sort of a cliffhanger, but there's no crash zoom to his face.

This is quite a slow first episode - it is very talky, with only one short action scene (when Robin rescued Marion and Sir Kenneth) - but it does have to introduce us to quite a lot of characters. In that regard it is pretty effective, since by the end we are left quite clear on who the main players are and what their key traits are. The Sheriff of Nottingham, for instance, seems to be a manny of reason, not action.

On the other paw, there is such a thing as being too leisurely in your pacing - we haven't even met the Merry Mannys yet! Blakes 7 may have taken multiple parts to introduce its main characters, but there were 52 episodes of that - here there are only six.

On the third paw, we can clearly see that the Sheriff has claws when he needs to...

Space Buttons

Despite the impending pantomime season this is nothing to do with a Space Panto written by Terry Nation. Sorry to disappoint, zanni.

This is actually about the visible futuristic space buttons I just noticed on Avon's costume, which you can see here:

Isn't it odd that I never noticed these before? I suppose I must have been too busy looking at Avon.

Purr.

Richard III (1955)

This is the Laurence Olivier version, which is still easily the most famous single version of the play even for those who have never watched any film or TV adaptation of it. I've seen several, from 1960's An Age of Kings where Richard was played by Paul Daneman, through versions with Ian Holm, Ron Cook, Ian McKellen, to the 2016 Benedict Cumberbatch-starring Hollow Crown, and this is still the go to version for references and impersonators* (Red Dwarf's Marooned, the overacting hospital in Monty Python's Flying Circus), not to mention the source of Peter Cook's oh dear Richard the third (plus inspiring much of the portrayal of Bosworth Field) in the first episode of The Black Adder.

At 2 hours and 30 minutes it's as abridged as most versions tend to be when they're intended to stand alone, as opposed to following on from the preceding Henry vi plays, since this allows a number of subplots (such as anything involving Queen Margaret) to be easily dropped. What did surprise me is how much this film rearranged scenes and dialogue - probably the most of any of those I'm familiar with. It doesn't even begin with the fabulous, unforgettable "Now..." speech, instead placing that a few scenes further in.

The abridging and rearranging is done with one thing in mind - the producer, director and star Olivier wants his character to be on screen at all times, always the centre of attention, even more so than Shakespeare had him. You're not for one moment allowed to forget who's in charge here, he overshadows every other actor and character - sometimes literally, since the motif of Richard's distinctive humpbacked silhouette is repeatedly used to fall upon and thus indicate his next victim.

Other actors of note include Stanley "Zulu" Baker as Henry Richmond, the future King Henry vii, who is allowed the merest trace of a Welsh accent, unlike everyone else who all speak in pure RP. Laurence "Fall of Eagles" Naismith is Lord Stanley who, unusually, is the one to kill Richard at the end - normally it is Richmond who does this. Perhaps Olivier thought it better coming from a character we had become familiar with throughout the film rather than one introduced only a couple of scenes earlier? Yes, clearly Olivier knows better than Shakespeare; no megalomania to be seen here. Mew.

A young-looking Douglas "what do you mean he's not Basil Rathbone?" Wilmer appears, as does Claire Bloom, the latter because there was a time when it was obligatory for her to appear in every Shakespeare adaptation made in Britain. The same can be said of John Gielgud who is here playing Clarence (I'm only surprised Mary Morris wasn't in this as well). And finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention Clive "Trenchard" Morton, looking much the same as he did in The Sea Devils even though that was made nearly 20 years later, and a young actor called Patrick Troughton took the small role of Tyrrell, the manny who murders the Princes in the Tower on behalf of their usurping uncle Dickie. I wonder whatever became of him?

Justifiably famous for being a lavish, technicolour production from out of the austere 1950s, but not really, if we're being honest, the best version of Richard iii. You all know by now I'm not normally a cat to praise modern television without cause, but I'd put the (relatively) recent Cumberbatch version above this, and it's not even the one I'd say was the best of the Thirds. I'd rate the 1983 Ron Cook BBC TV version as the one that deserves that crown, though being nearly unabridged and so running at about 4 hours in length you need to be prepared for a marathon not a sprint. Better yet, get a horse.

A horse.

My kingdom for a horse.

Mew.

* Some have even claimed that Paul Darrow was impersonating Olivier when he played Tekker in Timelash, including Darrow himself (on the DVD commentary). Personally I can't see much of a resemblance, because Paul Darrow is far too handsome. Unless it's the hair?

Yes, maybe that's it - it's his hair that's doing the impression. Mew.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Blakes 7: Games

Games is the eighth episode of the fourth season of Blakes 7. It was written by Bill Lyons, a writer who more usually wrote for soap operas or, if he was feeling adventurous, police dramas. This was his only script for Blakes 7, but it could have been worse - Ben Steed wrote three, after all!

It starts with our heroes watching some explosions on their TV on Scorpio! This week something called "Feldon" is the most valuable substance in the universe, even though it is mainly only used to make canes. Avon has a plan to steal all the Feldon from the Federation. Vila likes this plan, but is worried about how safe Feldon is when it caused the explosions they were watching.

Avon overcomes Vila's doubts when he says it is worth £900,000,000. Even though all he is doing is delivering exposition to the others, Avon is still hamming up every single one of his lines. That's why we love him so much. That and he's being handsome while doing it, purr.

Everyone agrees to go along with Avon's plan, obviously. Then Avon tells them the Feldon has already been stolen from the Federation, so they need to steal it from the thief. He says

"It is protected by a security system which is supposed to be impassable."

to which Vila replies

"They're all supposed to be impassable."

We are introduced to Belkov, played by Stratford "Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso" Johns, an actor who is best known for his standout appearance in a single episode of I Claudius in 1976, but at the time was probably still most famous for having played the police detective Charles Barlow (in Z Cars and several of its spinoff series) from 1962 until 1976.

After so many years in a single role it is hardly surprising that Johns wanted to escape from typecasting, so he made appearances in historical dramas and sci-fi series playing parts very different from Barlow. His turn as Belkov is one of the highlights of this episode. After being in Blakes 7 he would go on to be in Doctor Who's Four to Doomsday as the baddy Monarch, with - it has to be said - less success.

Belkov is playing a game against his computer, Gambit - doubtless named after Mike Gambit (purr) from The New Avengers. No, lol, I'm only pulling your tail - Gambit is probably actually named after the season two episode of the same name. It seems likely that Bill Lyons may have wanted to call this episode Gambit too... until somebody else on the production team pointed out that fans of BBC sci-fi have, historically, not reacted well when two stories in the same series share the same name.

Avon's allies of the week are already trying to steal the Feldon, which for reasons that aren't yet clear involves playing a computer game where the player gets pewpewpewed at by another manny that looks just like them. All three of them get pewed and only one of them, Gerren, manages to get away. Gerren is played by David Neal, probably best known for playing the President of Androzani in Doctor Who's Caves of Androzani - so he got a better deal than Stratford Johns in that, at least. He gets teleported onto Scorpio!

Servalan, who is still pretending to be Commissioner Sleer, visits Belkov to arrest him. She says

"This isn't a game Belkov. We want those crystals and we want them now."

Belkov replies that "it is a game" - it is already clear that he sees everything as a game, or at the very least something that can be turned into a game - hence the episode title.

In this picture of Avon and Gerren, Avon is indicating which one of them will survive to the end of the episode. Gerren describes the games protecting the Feldon as "booby traps."

Belkov space telephones Scorpio! to request them to rescue him from Servalan. He offers to pay them "half the Feldon crystals" if they do, but it is obviously a trap.

Vila, Tarrant and Dayna teleport to the planet with Gerren. The dialogue in this episode is full of references to sports and games. Belkov started it, but soon everyone is at it (and not in a way that would have improved this episode tremendously, mew). First Tarrant says

"Sorry, disqualified on a technicality."

after Dayna pews a Federation manny who was already ded, then back on Scorio! Avon says

"I don't mind playing games, but I do object when the opposition makes up the rules and decides to be the referee as well."

A scene in which Vila, Tarrant and Gerren get captured by some Federation mannys and then immediately afterwards get rescued by Dayna is purest padding.

Servalan and her mannys are searching for the missing Feldon crystals. Belkov offers to tell Servalan where she can find

"Avon... Vila... Tarrant... I understand the Federation would like them out of circulation."

He has done his homew-word, hasn't he? Belkov knows very well that Servalan doesn't care about Dayna or Soolin.

Vila, Tarrant, Dayna and Gerren break into Belkov's base. This scene includes a classic example of Federation helmets doing nothing to protect their soldiers, when Tarrant hits one right on the helmet (mew!) and still knocks him out.

Tarrant makes Vila stay outside while the rest of them go into the base to get captured. Considering how useless Vila is with guns, and that Dayna is right there, it is obvious that Vila was only left behind so that Tarrant could have a threesome with Dayna and Gerren because the plot required it.

Avon hasn't had much to do so far in this episode, and he is still on Scorpio! with Soolin and Orac, but what he does do he does in the hammiest way imaginable - in this respect it is the quality of his screentime that matters, not quantity. Although, when it comes to Avon, both would always be better.

Orac gives Avon some exposition about how advanced Belkov's computer Gambit is, which makes it difficult for even Orac to hack into for information about Belkov's security. The dialogue emphasises how much Belkov has upgraded Gambit, and Avon describes Gambit as

"It is his bodyguard, his companion, his playmate... his friend, Orac."

If Avon is implying that Gambit is Belkov's friend just like Orac is his friend, Orac has other ideas:

"That implies an emotional tie, which is no part of a computer's function."

Oh well, Avon will have to make do with Tarrant. And Blake. And every cat in the galaxy, of course. Purr.

Occasionally there are guest actors in Blakes 7 who try to take on Paul Darrow at his own game. Colin Baker in City at the Edge of the World may be the most obvious example of an actor daring to think they could out-ham the master. Stratford Johns doesn't make that mistake - the hammier Darrow gets, the more he goes the other way. When Belkov meets Tarrant and Dayna (oh, and Gerren's still here too) he downplays a little throat-cutting gesture and noise when explaining what will happen if they kill him:

"Gambit is programmed to raise the alarm. Wouldn't help me, I know, but it would ensure that you were captured and - erk - executed."

Vila sees a lot of explosions, caused by Belkov blowing up the Feldon mines for the lols. Avon sends Vila into Belkov's base to steal one of Gambit's circuits that they need for their plan.

Belkov sends Servalan and her mannys into a trap where they get into a fight with the planet's natives - that's the old sci-fi cliché of a primitive but dangerous people who don't like intruders in their sacred places. Belkov then lures Tarrant and Dayna (and Gerren) into a trap underneath his escape ship - stealing ideas from Moonraker, now that's a touch of class.

Vila meets Gambit and he starts talking to it and makes a couple of moves in the game that Gambit had been playing with Belkov, but then he has to hide when Belkov comes in. Belkov is preparing to leave and orders Gambit to "self-destruct" once all his other orders and plans have been carried out. Even though Vila is hiding right there, Gambit doesn't give him away to Belkov.

After Belkov has gone, Vila talks to Gambit some more and tries to persuade it to not self-destruct. It opens the door to release Tarrant and Dayna (and Gerren) and even gives Vila the circuit he wants. Although it took some out-of-character actions for Vila to end up in this situation, he was the perfect character to choose, and the only one of our heroes who could have won Gambit over in this way. These scenes alone make this the best episode for Vila, as a character (as distinct from being the best episode with Vila in it, which this decidedly isn't), since City at the Edge of the World back in season three.

While escaping, Tarrant and Dayna (and Gerren) get into a shootout with some Federation mannys. While the regular characters get teleported to safety on Scorpio! Gerren gets pewed and captured by Servalan. That's the last we'll see of him - you didn't need to be Orac to predict that Gerren wouldn't make it safely to the end credits.

Avon, Tarrant, Vila, Orac and Soolin go to Belkov's "orbiter" where the stolen crystals are, but they have to get past the "booby traps" first (rather than, say, teleporting straight to where the crystals are, because that just wouldn't be playing the game). The game that defeated Gerren and his friends at the start of the episode is beaten by Soolin, because she is good at shooting. The next game is a "flight simulator" which gets beaten by Tarrant because he is a pilot. You can see where the episode is going with this - there is one game to match each of our heroes' special skills. (Except for Dayna, since Belkov neglected to make a game about getting captured offscreen between scenes.)

Vila uses his thief skill to open the next door, then it is Avon's turn. Avon realises that the only winning move in this final game is not to play it, since it is designed to be unwinnable:

"There aren't any damned crystals. There never were any damned crystals. They're like everything else on this ship: a game. That's why the last one has to be impassable. We have got to get out of here!"

Belkov contacts Gambit from his escape ship and asks for it to paw over control of the ship to him, but Gambit refuses since it has been ordered to self-destruct afterwards. Realising that he's going to die either way, Belkov asks Gambit to draw power into the Feldon crystals from a black hole, to blow as much up as possible. Gambit agrees, and Belkov starts to laugh. 

He has liked the occasional low-key maniacal laugh throughout the episode, but hasn't gone the full Mordred until now.

Scorpio! pewpewpews the orbiter to allow our heroes to escape. Vila reveals that he took Belkov's necklace of crystals from the base, so at least they have some of the Feldon they came for.

"I'd say the last game was mine, wouldn't you?"

he says. Sadly for Vila (and in a reversal of the otherwise similar ending to City at the Edge of the World) they turn out to be fakes, so Avon gets the last line of the episode:

"End game to Belkov."

Games is the most average episode of season 4, being neither great like Headhunter, Sand or Orbit, nor awful like Power, Animals or Assassin. It has two points of interest that help it to stand out from other episodes, these being a rare increased role for Vila, and the noteworthy performance from guest actor Stratford Johns.

Sadly, many of the other aspects to this story have been done better elsewhere - we could look at Headhunter to see a better rival computer to Orac, or Gold to see a better heist episode. Even when Vila gets the chance to be centre stage and to put his thieving skills to use, this is still not done so well as had already been seen in City at the Edge of the World.

Still, at least the production doesn't stand out for all of the wrong reasons - better to be a Games than a Power any day. So I think we'll call this one a draw.