IN Ridley Scott's forthcoming film Nottingham, Russell Crowe will be seen quaffing from a drinking vessel made by three craftsmen from the Sheffield area.

Edale woodturner Robin Wood, along with silversmith Owen Waterhouse and silver spinner David Allison, both from Sheffield, have teamed up to make replicas of medieval bowls for the movie due to start shooting next month.

The trio have been commissioned to make four silver mounted mazers, highly prized vessels used for drinking toasts at special occasions.
Wood is also turning six massive beech bowls and a set of 30 eating bowls for use in the movie. "I have two more bowls to finish before I send the consignment off," he said this week.

Nottingham, slated for release in summer 2009, is an alternative take on the Robin Hood story, with the Sheriff of Nottingham, played by Russell Crowe, depicted as a sympathetic character.
Sam Riley is expected to be cast as a less than heroic Robin Hood with Sienna Miller as Maid Marian.

How did Robin Wood and co become involved? "I am well-known for medieval bowls and have written the standard book on the subject so I guess that's how the production designer found me," said Robin Wood.

"Ridley Scott is known for his attention to detail, which is great from my point of view. I am regularly approached for film and theatre productions who usually ring up and say 'We start filming next week and we need 80 bowls at £2.50 each' and I have to tell them I am not the person for that kind of job."

He has been turning replicas of medieval wooden bowls for 15 years on a foot-powered lathe. The last practitioner of the craft died in 1958 so, Wood had to copy his lathe and tools from old ones in museums and learn the skills by trial and error.

"I have done stuff for the Globe Theatre and the RSC, also the Tower of London and Hampton Court, but this is the first film I have been involved on," he says.

He is naturally looking forward to seeing his work on the big screen, probably brandished by Russell Crowe. "The mazes were very high class and the top of society drank from them, so the Sheriff of Nottingham will undoubtedly be seen using one," says the craftsmen who admits he tends to watch period movies with an eye on the utensils.

"I normally rant and rave that they've got it all wrong. Very few people realise that people drank from wooden bowls up to the 1600s. People only began using pots because they were cheaper. But most of the people who buy my bowls don't care if they are medieval or not."

So why do they buy them? "Because they are much nicer than pottery," he asserts. "At home we eat off wooden plates and bowls every day. It has a natural insulation so it keeps food warm without being too hot and the wood is cooler to handle. And eating is much quieter – there is none of the clackey-clack."

One of Robin Wood's bowls or plates will cost you from £20-25. One of his best-selling lines is the Porringer with hand-carved handles, a replica of an Elizabethan bowl found not far from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
To develop the mazers Wood and Owen Waterhouse travelled around museums studying original examples such as the fine collection at the British Museum and others at the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London. They then had a long period of experimentation to work out just how the originals were made, backed by a grant from the Tony Boase scholarship fund.

Waterhouse, currently undertaking an MA in silversmithing at Sheffield Hallam University and has worked on various commissions including the St Leger Stakes Trophy for Doncaster Racecourse, said: "The replicas we make have a magnificent history, it's wonderful to realise how skilled silversmiths were able to create these objects 600 years ago."

David Allison is one of only a handful of metal spinners in the country. He has been metalspinning for 35 years, having learnt as an apprentice from his uncle. He said: "It has been good to work with a woodturner who understands the way that my craft works, they are quite similar crafts in many ways."