Sherwood Forest would feel at home in the unspoilt Orgi wood, an 80-hectare oak grove more than 4,000 years old, hidden away from the tourist routes in deepest Navarra.
The Sheriff of Nottingham’s castle was also to be found in Navarra, at Artajona, where, with a little bit of extra work by the production team, the 11thcentury city walls give a convincing impression of Merrie England.
Robin and Little John ride to the castle on a stolen cart through a vineyard in order to rescue some kidnapped nuns, a vineyard that is still there today.
As Lester himself commented, the area: “looks like everyone’s idea of what England looked like in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.”
The glades among the oaks where Robin acts out his second childhood do indeed seem to be as idyllic and halcyon as an English country beer garden.
The famous, sensuous Spanish actress Victoria Abril plays Queen Isabella, King John’s child queen who occasionally isn’t thinking about sex, and Audrey Hepburn plays Marian, who gave up the life of the flesh when Robin left her and is willing to give up everything for him, even his life.