Maid Marian and her Merry Men is a British children's sitcom created and written by Tony Robinson and directed by David Bell. It began in 1989 on BBC One and ran for four series, with the last episode shown in 1994. The show was a partially musical comic retelling of the legend of Robin Hood, placing Maid Marian in the role of leader of the Merry Men, and reducing Robin to an incompetent ex-tailor. The programme was much appreciated by children and adults alike, and has been likened to Blackadder, not only for its historical setting and the presence of Tony Robinson, but also for its comic style. It is more surreal than Blackadder, however, and drops even more anachronisms. Many of the show's cast such as Howard Lew Lewis, Forbes Collins, Ramsay Gilderdale and Patsy Byrne had previously appeared in various episodes of Blackadder alongside Robinson. Like many British children's programmes, there is a lot of social commentary sneakily inserted, as well as witty asides about the Royal family, buses running on time, etc. Many of the plots spoofed or referenced film and television shows including other incarnations of Robin Hood in those mediums.
Jacko (Karl Howman) is a painter and decorator with an eye for the ladies. He works with Eric (Mike Walling), who's married to his sister Jean (Nicky Croydon). The painting and decorating firm they work for is owned by Lionel Bainbridge (Gary Waldhorn). Other characters include Lionel's wife, Veronica (Elizabeth Counsell), his daughter Lelsey (Kim Thomson, later Erika Hoffman) and wine bar owner Elmo Putney (Howard Lew Lewis).
Mr. Pye is a missionary whose mission to spread God's love on the tiny English Channel island of Sark faces supernatural setbacks in this comic fantasy from the author of Gormenghast.
Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.
In 1965, at the age of 25, Alan Ackland is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a business associate. In 1971, Sylvia Barker, lonely and depressed after a failed marriage and with two young children to bring up alone, seeks a new direction in her life and applies to become a voluntary prison visitor. Several years later their paths cross.
Howard Lew Lewis was an English comedian and actor best known for his roles in the 1980s sitcom Brush Strokes and Tony Robinson's children's comedy series Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. His first job was with the RAF as a a computer operator and he worked for several years in computing and telecommunications at managerial level before undertaking acting as his chosen career. He often appeared in vehicles for Ronnie Barker, including The Magnificent Evans and Open All Hour, and appeared in the first series of Blackadder. His film roles included Hal in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, a guard in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Richard Attenborough's Chaplin, and the voice of Obelix in the 1994 animated film Asterix in America. Diabetes and dementia plagued him in later years and he was admitted into a community hospital in Edinburgh in 2017. He passed away there on 20th January 2018. Police Scotland confirmed later that month that they were investigating a complaint brought by Lewis's daughter Debora Milazzo against the hospital. She claimed that her father was given an unnecessary cocktail of high-dose sedatives and maximum-strength opiate painkillers that subsequently brought about his death. The police ultimately found no case to answer.
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