Men In Tights

I saw MacMillan and Hutton's Fairy Tale Ending at the 2010 Fringe. They are back with another fractured fairy tale called "Robin Hood: The Legendary Musical Comedy". Hart House Theatre was an appropriate venue for a medieval act, being buried underground, with curving archways and chandeliers. This new staging hewed closely to the myth: Robin of Locksley returns from the Crusades to find the people of England suffering under King John. He meets up with Little John, Friar Tuck, and with his Merry Men rob from the rich to give to the poor.

From this well-known myth, they have created a funny comedy with a vainglorious Robin (Daniel James), a dim-witted King John (Kevin MacPherson) and his long-suffering Sheriff of Nottingham (William Foley), a smarmy Tuck (Benjamin Kyte), blue-collar Little John (Andrew Dundass), and 1%-per-center Maid Marian (Jennifer Morris). Will Scarlet (Kelly McCormack) has been turned into a female rival to Marian as the hot-headed original leader of the Sherwood Forest bandits before they joined up with Robin Hood. The music was a pastiche of styles; though primarily musical theatre, there were also a tango number, a gospel song, and 80s Phil Collins-esque pop among others. There were a couple of sly digs at the genre including 2 send-ups of Les Miz. The fight choreography involving epees, wooden staves, sabers, and even some hand-to-hand was exciting and surprisingly professional.

In addition to the leads, there was a fairly large cast who sang and danced as poor people, evil goons, merry men, and even a pirate or two ("Every comedy is better with a pirate! Yarr!") There was a live band hidden off-stage. The irreverence and meta-comedy made the show consistently funny, but it also lessened the bite of darker numbers such as Poverty (God made you poor for a reason says the friar) and Generosity (there could be self-serving reasons for Robin to give to the poor). It also meant that this musical lacked the heartfelt sincerity of Fairy Tale Ending because of the deliberately hammy acting. Robin Hood was amusing, clever, and enjoyable if a bit overlong (the script could use a 10-15 minute trim).