Performance Art
The Outlaw sketch, 2012
Written and devised by JMW
For his inaugural drive-in as the newly-elected captain of Woodford Golf Club, John Michael Wade devised and wrote a three-minute comedy sketch which was enacted before the members for one day only on Nov 18, 2012. He cast himself as Robin Hood in order to pay homage to his birthplace at Retford, Notts and his boyhood and youth in Mansfield, the centre of Sherwood Forest. In the sketch, the hooded Robin prances on to the 10th tee on a hobby horse blowing blasts on his hunting horn followed by the outlandishly-garbed Merry Men plus Maid Marian and Mistress Karen guarding the manacled Cheryl of Nottingham, the sheriff's kidnapped daughter. There then follows a playlet when the Merry Men want to hang Cheryl, but Friar Tuck intervenes with a plea ending in an "Amen, Awomen, Apersons" and Robin spares the virgin's life to the disgust of his Outlaws. The sketch ends with Robin instructing Will Scarlet to email the Sheriff on his iPad demanding a 100 florins ransom for his daughter. With that, says Robin, "I will buy the Tower of London and with the change Hyde Park, that haunt of toffs and tarts." Then Robin urges his men to bring their bows of burning gold and arrows of desire. Finally, he cries "Fore" and a fusillade of toy arrows is fired over his head.
Apart from the still above showing Robin Hood riding his hobby horse and blowing his horn while pursued by Alan A'Dale (Terry Insole) strumming his ukulele, the event was filmed in its entirety and put on to the YouTube website, by Anna Maris. You can find it by going to YouTube and searching for the "Woodford golf comedy sketch". Additionally, the shambolic dress rehearsal a couple of days before the event when the jester George A'Green (Vince Thompson) shed his daft, multi-coloured hat of bells and hid behind Hood mimicking the leader's words with mock sign language also was sent to YouTube. For this idiotic rehearsal search on YouTube for MVI 6345 by Paul Verney.
In the great tradition of oddball drives-in at Woodford, this one was reckoned by long-standing members to be the best ever performed, even by Steve Strum, the 2007 captain who appeared at his drive-in as a Roman emperor and smote an exploding golf ball. This is Performance Art at its craziest.
The Cast: Robin Hood (Captain John Michael Wade); Friar Tuck (Martin Cox), Will Scarlett (Colin Thompson), Maid Marian (Susanna Ferrar) Alan A'Dale (Terry Insole) Mistress Karen, Lady of the Bedchamber (Karen Verney), Little John (John Beecroft), Much the miller's son (Kevin Sullivan), George A'Green the forest jester (Vince Thompson), David of Doncaster (Steve Parker), Cheryl of Nottingham (Cheryl Cook) and with grateful assistance from club secretary Peter Willett.
The videos below were despatched to the YouTube website.
No 1 video of the actual event was shot by Lynne Wade.
No 2 video, also of the event, was shot by the laughing lady member of the cavalry, Anna Maris.
No 3 video of the crackpot dress rehearsal at Woodford's clubhouse was shot by Paul Verney.
Bizarre Bazaar
En Suite
Fibonacci Duo
Artifice
Fibonacci Bedhead
Love Hurts
The Magic of Mathematics
Reel Time
Abreast of the times
Enigma 1
Lavatory humour
Mutton dressed up as Lamb
Change
The Art of Darkness, 2012
Cloud necklace
Performance Art
Photographs
Square-up to the 2012 Carlinalympics
Captain Niblick – the world's worst golf skipper
The Day Before Yesterday - a tour of Britain in 1985
The Old Colonial Boy
JMW biography