Radio Adaptations of Robin Hood's Legend During the Golden Age of Radio

Abstract

During radio's reign on the airwaves, classics and legends were sources for radio plays written for a wide audience. Scriptwriters realized radio's cultural importance and culled classics for material that pushed their conception of “high” culture but still satisfied a wide audience. Radio plays were adapted from William Shakespeare's plays, Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and Robin Hood's legend. This study covers radio adaptations of Robin Hood broadcast between the 1930s and 1970s: Popeye (1939); Buster Brown (1948); Family Theater (1949); the children's theater program Let's Pretend (1954), Escape (1952), Gunsmoke (1955); and Crisis (1975).

Notes

¹The Middle Ages began in 1000 and ended in 1500, though suggestions have it beginning even earlier with the fall of the Roman Empire and ending with the Renaissance.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Echols

Katherine Echols (M.A., Sam Houston State University, 2007) is a doctoral student at the University of Houston in the Department of English. Her interests include adaptation studies, especially eighteenth-century appropriations of Chaucer.