Me & Robin Hood

Shôn Dale-Jones

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786822543
• eBook ISBN: 9781786822550
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

I first met Robin Hood in the Autumn of 1975, as a seven-year-old boy, and we have been good mates ever since. Recently, he's been going crazy about the direction our world is heading. He can't believe there isn't a bigger reaction to all the madness. This show is his idea. He's convinced we need to change the story of money and share the opportunity some of us have been given if we really want to do something about inequality and the growing gap between rich and poor. In aid of Street Child United.

Please use this script as a guide.
Play with it, change it, add to it – make it your own.
You need to own it. It has to be yours.

The stage is empty. There is a general wash on stage and a little bit of light on the audience. It’s important that the space feels like one space.

The audience enters. The performer meets the audience – shaking their hands as they come in, thanking them for coming. He/she is being light, cheerful and open. He/she begins.

Note: the performer needs to allow latecomers in and include them by improvising around their arrival. He/she also needs to point out any specific elements about the venue. The idea is to make sure we are present in the here and now and that each performance of the piece is unique.

Thank you very much indeed for coming today. Great that you’re all here.

I really like stories. I like stories that sometimes feel real. I think that it’s wonderful how the human imagination can hold both fiction and reality simultaneously, and I think sometimes we struggle to separate the two.

I was on my way to a theatre to do a show at the beginning of this year. Not this show, another show. I was sitting on a train, feeling stressed. In fact, I was so stressed, that I had a skin condition. The doctors told me that my skin condition was caused by stress, and when they told me that, it made me feel stressed, and my skin condition definitely got worse. So I had to agree with their diagnosis, but what was frustrating was that they didn’t give me an ointment. They didn’t give me a cream.

I think I was feeling stressed because I was struggling to pay my mortgage. I felt as if I was being held inside a story that I didn’t really want to be part of and I was going to do a show that evening in front of only seventeen people.

I’d done the maths – I’d worked out, after I’ve paid for my transport and the marketing, got my percentage of the box-office – basically I was going to make about fifty pounds. So that was stressing me out.

And then I started reading a newspaper report in which the UN reported that there are now over one hundred and fifty million children living on the street. And that stressed me out. I stressed out about the fact that I was stressing out about my own life when there are other lives that are much more stressful than mine.

And then a ticket collector came up to me and said, “Ticket please”. So I gave him my ticket and he said, “That’s a second class ticket; you’re sitting on a first class seat.” I said, “Yeah, yeah I know, but I went to the second class carriage and it was absolutely rammed and so I came here; there was no-one here, so I plonked myself down.” He said, “Sorry sir, it doesn’t work like that, I’m gong to have to fine you fifty pounds.”

I sat there looking at him, and I said, “Come the revolution, I will be the one who orders your execution.” Although of course I didn’t say that out loud; I said that in my mind. What I did in reality was, I got my wallet, scrabbled together forty-seven pounds and eighty-three pence and gave him the cash. He counted it, then he said, “Oh sorry sir, you’re going to have to put two pounds seventeen on a card.” And I said, “I don’t really want to use my card… Oh ok, never mind.” I did the contactless payment and he gave me a ticket and I said to him, “So are you happy now that I’ve given you some paper, a few chunks of metal, and a touch of plastic?” He said, “What?” And I said, “That’s all I’ve really done, isn’t it? All I’ve really done is given you a few pieces of paper, a few chunks of metal and a little touch of plastic. Does that make it all ok now?”

He looked very confused and he walked away. And when he walked away I thought he also looked degraded. And to be honest, I felt degraded. That’s the thing isn’t it, with authority, on either side of it, there’s a lot of degradation going on. And of course, it was ironic for me to feel degraded because I’d just upgraded.

Then I start scratching because I’d got a bit more stressed, and I hear, “UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!” Because that’s what they would have shouted in the twelfth century if I’d walked into a village with my skin condition. And before you know it, I’m in the twelfth century, with Robin Hood. I don’t know how you remember how Robin Hood became Robin Hood, but this is how I remember it.

What happened is, Robin Hood was twenty years old, not much older than me, and he was practicing his sword fighting and his archery in the woods. Then two priests came up to him and said, “Excuse me, sorry to say, but your dad’s dead.” And he said, “No no no, my dad’s chopping wood in the forest,” and they said, “No no no your real dad. Your real dad isn’t Forrester Hood, your real dad is the Earl of Huntingdon, an aristocrat.”

Robin Hood couldn’t believe it. It was as if he’d won the lottery. He left the forest, he left the commoners and went to the Court. They gave him a huge house, they gave him stables, horses and lots of land. He really liked being the Earl of Huntingdon. He really liked going to the Court. And then one day in the Court he overheard a plot to kill the King of England. He went into the room from which he heard the voices plotting, and there, in that room, was the Sheriff of Nottingham and his soldiers. They looked at Robin Hood and, of course, by now, he knew too much, and so they turned on him. Robin Hood ran out of the Court, into the courtyard, and there, in the corner of the courtyard, stood a really big, strong, black horse. It was the Sheriff of Nottingham’s horse. He jumped on the horse and galloped away. And because he was a really good horse-rider, he managed to escape from the soldiers easily. Eventually, he was back in the forest, trotting through the woods.

So I’m on the train, we’re going through some woods and then I see the name of the town where I’m playing my show. The train stops. I grab my coat and bag and I get off the train.

I’ve been to this theatre many times before, so I know how to get to the theatre from the train station. As I walk towards the theatre, a homeless person comes up to me and says, “Have you got any money?” And I do this, you know ( mimes turning out his/her pockets) to show him that I literally don’t have any cash and I bring out my first class ticket. He says, “Mate, you must have money if you paid for a first class ticket,” and I say, “Listen, I would tell you but they’ve already heard it…” (performer indicates audience) Obviously that was confusing for him.

I must admit, I felt bad. That day, I really wanted to give him some money. I didn’t feel good about it.

And then I’m back in the woods, you know, on the horse with Robin Hood, trotting through the forest. It’s getting dark and suddenly Robin Hood gets pushed off his horse. He doesn’t know who’s attacked him; he grabs his sword and starts sword fighting in the dark. He doesn’t know who he’s fighting until he gets right up close, (performer gets up close to audience member) as close as this and he recognises the person – it’s Will Scarlett. They know each other from the past, they’re friends and so they stop fighting. They both put their swords in the soil, make a little fire, they get some sticks and they get some wood pigeon and they roast wood pigeon together on the fire. Anyone here who’s vegetarian, think of carrots.

So there they are, roasting wood pigeon or carrots, and Will Scarlett says that the only reason that he pushed him off the horse is because he recognised the horse was the Sheriff of Nottingham’s. And then Will Scarlett explains that the Sheriff of Nottingham and his soldiers have been oppressing the poor for a long time. And in that moment they decide that this has got to stop. In that moment there, around the fire with the wood pigeons, that’s when Robin Hood is born. You know, the Robin Hood that we know him as – the man who has the courage of his convictions to rob the rich to feed the poor.

So, I’m on my way to the theatre and I’m thinking to myself, “What’s the point of doing the show tonight? I’m playing in front of seventeen people, I’m not going to make much money”, and then I see the theatre. Beside the door of the theatre, there’s a really nice poster of me. I’m not saying it’s just because of me – it’s well designed. And I’m looking at it and I’m thinking to myself, “This is what I have aspired to for the last twenty years of my working life. It’s not what my father aspired for me, he wanted me to be a lawyer, but this is what I wanted.” But in this moment, I have no feeling of satisfaction. I actually feel hollow.

I go into the theatre. I go to the Marketing Department. I’ve been there a few times, so I know them quite well. There’s a woman called Janet and a guy called Richard. And I look at Janet, and she says “(name of performer), I’m really sorry that we haven’t sold more tickets. I’ve seen your show, it’s full of integrity, it’s just hard to get people to part with their money for a bit of integrity these days.” We a laugh a little bit and then I say to her, “Where’s Richard?” She says, “Oh, he’s been made redundant.” And I’m thinking, “Oh wow, that’s a shame.” I know him a little bit. I know he’s got two children. I start wondering if he’s having problems paying his mortgage and I wonder if he has a skin condition.

And then I know what to do. I know exactly what needs to be done.

I ask Janet, “Please ca...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Me & Robin Hood