Robyn and the Merrymen

Robyn and the Merryman

Robyn and the Merrymen: A New Musical

So, I wrote a musical. (!) It's a modern riff on Robin Hood set in mid-90s London. Our Robyn, a young woman, is a street musician with a generous and buoyant spirit, and lead singer of the Merrymen; lead guitarist Little John is her best mate. They perform (and rent rooms upstairs) at the Filch & Friar pub, which has been run for decades by 80-year-old landlady Mother Mary, an Irish immigrant. 

Real estate tycoon Hereford Bishop III buys the Filch & Friar and wants to demolish it to build a luxury hotel. But under UK law he can't evict the tenants until their leases are up — unless they're charged with a crime. So he pays off Inspector Nottingham to arrest all the tenants, even old Mother Mary, on dubious charges. 

Bishop’s stepdaughter, the clever grad student Marian, thinks he's an exploitative jerk. After a run-in with Robyn and Little John at a party, she helps them thwart the billionaire, first saving the pub from demolition by resurfacing some of its forgotten women’s history, and then helping them to buy it back — by selling Bishop a forgery of a famous stolen painting, and getting the neighborhood to purchase the pub together as a community-owned cooperative. 

The story contains many of the key elements of a Robin Hood tale — playful humor, disguises, a jailbreak, and Robin’s legendary archery prowess (well, darts, in this case). Most importantly, it adheres to the tradition of denouncing greed, inequality, and amoral lawfulness, while celebrating generosity, acts of kindness, friendship, and “good trouble.” 

Here's a demo recording of the first song, 'Pickpocket Philanthropist.' The musical opens with Robyn busking in Camden Town, until she's chased off by Inspector Nottingham; she walks through the streets of North London until she reaches the Filch & Friar pub, where she joins the Merrymen on stage. 


Here's another demo (again with me singing, but we'll soon have a real Robyn on vocals!), of "Falling Hard." Robyn's on stage singing this when Marian comes to see them at the pub for the first time. 


And here's a demo of the Act II opener, "Bugger Off" — this is sung by the Merrymen's rival band, Mirage, led by Guy and Gus Gisborne, a swaggering pair of drunken, brawling brothers. Unfortunately, they're filling in for the Merrymen when a record label rep comes to the pub.
 

A few songs later in Act II, Little John leads this punk anthem, called "Eat the Rich," as he and Robin devise a plan to sell Bishop a forged painting: 



Stay tuned for more demo recordings and details on a staged concert reading! 

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