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This was written by David Lloyd a.k.a. Graeme the Knight on Tuesday July 21st 1998. "To all those asking about the Stage Show, here's a copy of a promotional blurb done when it was performed at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in April 1996: MAID MARIAN AND HER MERRY MEN - The Musical Spellbound by ³Godspell²? In love with ³Aspects of Love²? Starry-eyed over ³Jesus Christ Superstar²? Then a word of warning...Maid Marian isnıt like any of these shows. Itıs a fresh, funny, contemporary musical featuring the kind of music todayıs young people want to hear. Maid Marian is based on the multi award-winning TV series, but doesnıt retread old ground or rely on the original TV cast for its appeal. (Apart from Tony Robinson, who co-wrote and co-directed it, so itıs his ball and he said if he wasnıt the star heıd be taking it straight home and no-one else could play either. So there). The show features an ensemble company of all-singing, all-dancing, all-knackered-by-the-end-of-the-show performers, and is fresh, vibrant and different. When Maid Marian and her Merry Men first hit your TV screen, it was like no other kidıs TV show, and the stage version takes a similarly fresh and irreverent approach to the cosy world of musical theatre. Fed up with having to do yet another performance of Malcolm MacMillanıs traditional production of that perennial family favourite ³Robin Hood and His Merry Men², the actors stop the show and decide to tell it how it really was; the story of Maid Marian and her Merry Men. Marian soon has the audience on her side, and MacMillan is forced to let her do things her way as the cast launch into their own up-tempo, improvised and very funny version of events. Marian and her rapidly assembled band of freedom fighters stand up for the rights of freedom, justice, democracy and the right to party in their fight against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham and his horrid henchperson, Susan who are terrorising the innocent and brain-dead villagers of Patchway. When the baddies make off with all the villagers clothes, Marian realises its time to act, and in a spectacular confrontation kills the evil Sheriff. Unfortunately the show has barely reached the interval, and as MacMillan needs the audiences ice cream money he is forced to assume the mantle of the new and even more evil Sheriff of Nottingham and start telling the story from his point of view. Thanks to the trickery of the Sheriff and the incompetence of Robin and the rest of the gang, Marian is tricked, outwitted, humiliated and eventually tied to a huge missile which is programmed to destroy Patchway...is this the end for Maid Marian and her Merry Men? Of course it isnıt, but youıll have to come and see the show to find out exactly what happens at the end. The show was co-written by Tony Robinson, Mark Billingham and David Lloyd, with music by John O'Hara and Akintayo Akinbode."
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