Simon Mattacks
speaker
2,981 appearances
17 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 13 Sep
Simon Mattacks’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 14 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.
Appearances
In it, Robin Hood appeared as a yeoman archer who conducted his adventures during the reign of Richard I. For this version of the legend, he was known as Robin of Locksley.
Ivanhoe represented a truly notable shift in the motivations and behaviors of the Robin Hood character.
In the world of Ivanhoe, Robin was unfailingly loyal to King Richard, a Saxon in a world where the Normans had previously dominated.
This Robin was still a thief.
That hadn't changed.
But in contrast to the earliest versions of his character, he had become an outlaw as a reaction to unfair Norman persecution.
Furthermore, he ruled his company of men with fairness and equity, giving back a portion of their spoils to charity.
That right there was the Robin Hood who would persist throughout the ensuing decades and centuries.
It fit right in with the blossoming of romantic literature that continued throughout the 19th century.
Furthermore, it was in sync with the general political mood of the times.
As Philpott puts it,
Ritson, Scott, and other literary writers of the 19th century were less bothered with authenticity or historical accuracy and more interested in creating atmosphere.
Robin, as provider to the poor and enemy of the rich, fitted into discourses about wealth, power, and authority that was prevalent in the 19th century.
In 1883, a writer named Howard Pyle released a compilation of Robin Hood tales that cemented the outlaw's image for the next century.
Pyle was already a working illustrator and writer, and this volume of Robin Hood stories was his first novel.
In his book, Robin Hood and His Merry Men, Pyle went back to the old ballads of yore and rewrote them, reshaping the character and actions of Robin Hood into those of the newer romantic character.
These stories were much more appropriate for children, and in keeping with the vision of Walter Scott, they presented Robin Hood as an altruistic, upstanding action figure.
And just as the printing press had changed the way Robin Hood stories were told, so too did the advent of the film industry.
1908 saw the debut of the first Robin Hood film in England.
But he got a much bigger stage in the 1922 silent film called Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood.
Showing 1701–1720 of 2,981 · page 86 of 150
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