GOBBLEDIGOOK Theatre call themselves masters of mischief, but when they announce a Robin Hood with no Robin Hood, you might think the York company's mischief-making has gone too in David Jarman's script.
No Robin Hood? That's just Gobbledigook, isn't it? Well, no it isn't, because "we are all Robin Hood", say the Merry Men/Women gathered around the brazier at the Outlaws' camp, over the stepping stones, beyond the river, and into the woodland, amid the grazing Friesian cows.
Robin Hood is a mythical figure, whose spirit is to be embraced in the fight against the stringent taxes of Prince John, collected in the absence of Richard the Lionheart on his latest Crusade.
We gather amid bales of hay in a tent, shielded beneath tarpaulin from the sheeting rain, but as if by magic the skies clear and Bolton Abbey looks resplendent in all its verdant glory for this promenading theatre adventure.
A taxing performance: Nick Lewis as Prince John
We are swept off across the bridge to the Outlaws' camp, where John (Anna Soden), Scarlett (Tori Klays), Ellen (Emma Walker) and feisty Marion (Zoe Hakin) invite us to join in scraping the carrots or sit in upturned wheelbarrows that double as seats.
These "Merry Men" are feminist, socialist revolutionaries, not averse to nail varnish (bright yellow for Scarlett) or henna hand decoration (for Soden's John), and they even have Robert Heard's Nottingham on their side as he slips down the woodland banks into the camp. Like all sheriffs, he has been told to raise funds from the downtrodden poor for the crusades, or he will lose his post, but revolution is in the air and he wants in.
Spotted in the woods is someone calling himself Much – so named for asking farmers "How Much" they charge for their grain, on behalf of his miller father – and the Merry Men will take some convincing he is not out to snitch on them. As played by Sam Gannon, however, he is the comic turn of the piece, the children's favourite, the daft lad, and of course he could only be on one side.
The Outlaws' camp in Gobbledigook Theatre's Robin Hood at Bolton Abbey
A beach by the river, a dinghy and decrees from Prince John's minions (Holly Rafferty, Millie Rafferty, Rory Vince) play their part before Prince John (Nick Lewis) hoves into view in a military buggy, Lewis brooding just as he did so memorably in Sweeney Todd, but with a villainous air more in keeping with the exaggerations of pantomime.
After all, this is an adventure for children first and foremost, albeit fuelled with such adult concepts as treason and tyranny, and you don't have to look far to find resonance in the political landscape of today in its depiction of them and us.
During the interval, a heron takes up station on the river – gosh, this is such a beautiful amphitheatre for theatre – before we are divided into guests and servants at Prince John's banquet in the Priory ruins, where the battle – sword fight, more precisely – will be played out between good and evil, where Henry VIII once decreed dissolution, not revolution.
Alexander Flanagan-Wright's direction is typically full of panache, fun, invention and colourful characterisation, and by the end we are indeed all Robin Hood.
Robin Hood, Gobbledigook Theatre, Bolton Abbey, near Skipton, until Sunday, 2pm and 6.30pm daily. Box office: buytickets.at/gobbledigook/98627 or tickettailor.com
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