FACED with the prospect of listening to Kate Thornton tell me it was the big one' and that the finalists had been on a real journey' for two-and-a-half hours I sought refuge from the X Factor by tuning in to Robin Hood on BBC1 on Saturday night.

For those brought up on the idea of a band of men prancing around the forest in green tights, this current series is a bit of a shock.

For a start there are only half a dozen of them and they look more like the latest guitar band than a bunch of outlaws.

And, considering it was being aired at 7pm, I was surprised at the levels of violence. In the first two minutes those naughty sherrif's men had badly beaten someone up and shortly afterwards were torturing him with a hot poker - hardly your normal family viewing.

But in spite of this and a fairly cheesy plot involving Little John and his long-lost son - which allowed him a great Star Wars moment when he declared "I am your father" - it was a good, escapist 45 minutes.

What made it worth watching was Keith Allen as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Clearly taking a leaf out of the Alan Rickman book of how to be a baddie, Allen snarled and rolled his eyes like a pantomime villain.

You get the sense that he is enjoying hamming it up and his proclamation about a festival of pain' to encourage the peasants to pay their taxes was pure comedy.

Purists will hark back to the days of Richard Green and say the series is not a patch on the original.

But it's entertaining, a rare commodity on Saturday nights - and it's certainly better than X Factor.