Post by Lucy of Ravenscar on Jun 13, 2014 16:11:04 GMT
Is Robin of Sherwood camp?
The reason I'm asking this question is that I've been mooching around the internet looking at various RoS-related things, and a couple of times I've come across comments from people who love the show, who've maybe watched it again after not seeing it for a while, and they've often said, amongst many compliments, that it's a bit camp.
I was surprised when I read this as I'd never especially thought the show was camp, and so I started to think about it. When I think 'camp' I think of something like Flash Gordon, one of the campest films of all time. Or Blake's 7, a show which mixes grit and misery with a liberal dollop of camp, particularly in the persona of Servalan, the main villain(ess). She is the head of the military in the brutal Federation, she works in a clinical-looking space station surrounded by people in military uniforms and the futuristic equivalent of the suit, and yet she goes to work every day in a white cocktail dress and high heels! She even ends up on Bamburgh beach at one point, running around the sand in such an outfit - I bet Simon de Belleme would love to have met her!
So, are there any camp elements in RoS? How about the Sheriff? He can be wonderfully over the top at times, and he does wear some amazing colourful and embroidered 'frocks' (as Nickolas Grace puts it), but those were the correct clothes for someone of his position in that period, and he's often very hard-headed. I think I'd only call him a little bit camp, occasionally (Rub me harder Gisburne!).
Villains are the obvious characters to look at for campy behaviour, but I think I'd only include Philip Mark (all that black leather is rather camp compared to what the other Norman characters wear) and perhaps Gulnar, though I tend to think of him as a totally insane one-off.
When I think of the more extreme moments and characters in the series, I think the description I'd go for more is 'gothic' - think of Morgwyn and her nuns stripping off their robes and chanting to Lucifer, or Belleme summoning demons, along with mysterious Herne in his cave, or even the slightly brooding, fey Robin of Loxley.
What do you think?
