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Charlotte Ritchie (Alison) and Laurence Rickard (Robin) join Nathan Bryon (Obi) on Ghosts companion podcast, Inside...
- 5 min
- 47.5K
- BBC Sounds
- Overview
- Biography
- Appearance
- Personality
- Powers
- Quotes
- Notes
Robin, real name Rogh, is a caveman and the oldest ghost at Button House. He is portrayed by Laurence Rickard, who also plays Humphrey's Head.
Robin is by far the oldest ghost at Button House, having died thousands of years ago. One day Robin and two of his friends were out hunting when they were attacked by a bear. His two friends were killed but Robin escaped and climbed a tree to hide from the bear. However, soon a storm came and Robin was struck by lightning. He has the power to control light as a ghost, which could have come from his cause of death.
He is the oldest ghost and has haunted Button House before it existed. He haunted the land at first, and the village it became, and some of the villagers who died of the plague joined him as ghosts. They would have watched the construction of Button House, but the plague ghosts went to live in the basement of the house once it was finished, as the basement was in the remains of the plague pit their corpses were buried in. The caveman has also claimed that the land was his first.
Over his time haunting the grounds Robin has observed people and managed to learn English (as well as French, and some Russian); while not perfect he is completely understandable and often makes puns much to the chagrin of his fellow dead. He is mentioned to have sired children with his sister, suggesting he is an ancestor to the owners of Button House (and probably to all modern humans); he sired at least thirty children.
Given that Barclay Beg-Chetwynde claims that a "half-man, half-ape" creature haunts the grounds of Button House, it is possible that Robin has been seen by a living person other than Alison Cooper at some point in his long existence, though how and by whom has yet to be explored.
Robin looks like a stereotypical Stone Age caveman. His hair is wild and his beard is equally untamed, his forehead protrudes and he is filthy. Robin is dressed in an array of skins and furs, some of which have been bound to his feet and calves as shoes.
While the other ghosts are mostly stuck in their ways, and by extension their eras, Robin is quite the opposite. He has watched human life for longer than everybody else combined has been alive, so he has learnt and essentially evolved from grunts and hunting to have a detailed personality with his own unique traits. Robin is one of the kindest, caring and most considerate ghosts to haunt Button House; he's second only to Pat. Robin's also - despite his appearance and inability to speak in grammatically correct sentences - one of the more intelligent and quick thinking spirits.
Having seen almost everything in his time Robin has remained remarkably level-headed and often comes up with the best, most logical solution to a problem the others have exacerbated. He seems to be pretty good in a crisis and excels in thinking outside of the box while remaining rational. Although, Robin has been known to become childish and grumpy when disappointed. He has a deep love of chess which he regularly plays with Julian and has become somewhat of an expert on the game. After Alison moves in he further adds to his list of fun activities by filling in the newspaper crosswords.
In the beginning, Robin's favourite thing to do to Alison was to hide in every dark corner he could find, then jump out at her and scream 'boo'. Originally he started as part of The Captain's plot to scare Mike and Alison out however kept on doing it even afterwards just for his own amusement.
In episode five, Robin is obsessed with completing the Moonah Ston Ritual, which he conducts every lunar eclipse. He loves the moon, because it has always been there, through everything changing.
Robin has a special ability that allows him to cause lights to flicker and turn off, and with concentration he can also cause them to burn out. He has also been shown using his ghostly form as a sort of conduit to attract lightning, though this takes immense effort.
He seems to also have the ability to call nearby dogs by howling.
•"Pushy or no pushy?" (Who Do You Think You Are?)
•"Oh! Argh! Eeh! Uh- box- move- go uh wheel- Auurgh- CAR!" (Who Do You Think You Are?)
•"Not just a pretty face." (Who Do You Think You Are?)
•"Never bored with chess board!" (Free Pass)
•"Me speak good." (Moonah Ston)
•"No moonah ston, no help lady." (Moonah Ston)
1.In the 'Button House Archives' a timeline shows Robin lived 'about' 10,000BCE.
2.According to Pineapple Day, Robin has been dead for "thousands of years".
3."Speak as ye choose"
4.Assuming Robin is Homo Sapiens, this species only emerged around 300,000 years ago, so a death millions of years ago appears ruled out. The earliest evidence for Homo Sapiens in Britain dates to around 40,000 years ago but continuous settlement of Britain by Homo Sapiens is only believed to have been for the last 12,000 years. Robin’s prodigious number of offspring and direct bloodline to all the later ghosts, suggests a continual line of Robin’s descendants living in Britain. In the episode “Home”, Robin remembers a time before Britain became an island and claims to have “walked here”. This would place him as being alive before Doggerland became flooded, around 6500 BCE. So, Robin’s death date appears to be constrained to some time between 8,500-40,000 years ago and most likely 8,500-12,000 years ago.
5.This is not as bold a claim as it sounds; the most recent common ancestor of all modern humans most likely lived no more than 3,000 years ago, and there is a point further back, thought to be around 10-15,000 years ago, beyond which every individual is either a common ancestor to all humans, or has no living descendants at all.
6.Perfect Day
Oct 26, 2023 · The creators of the BBC comedy talked about it for a long time, says Larry Rickard, co-writer and the man behind the show’s caveman ghost Robin and headless Humphrey. The gang knew they wanted...
Feb 13, 2024 · And that's how it went, and why we all think of kindly old Rogh as Robin - though Rickard does point out that if he were asked his name, he'd respond 'Rogh.'. But that's not the whole story. Apparently this funny little bit was pulled directly from Laurence Rickard's life.
- tiffany.babb@reedpop.com
- Contributing Writer
Sep 21, 2022 · How would you sum up Robin? He’s such a wild card. Sometimes he’s like a very base family dog. And at other times, he’s like the smartest guy in the room. Because even though the speech centre of his brain is the size of an acorn, he’s seen everything. So in terms of amassed knowledge, there’s very little that he hasn’t come across ...
Sep 26, 2023 · Ghosts’ stars, writers and creators Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond return with six new episodes of the smash-hit comedy, along...
People also ask
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Feb 13, 2024 · BBC's Ghosts is most notable for its extremely memorable cast of characters. But exactly how much of the characters come from the writer/actors themselves? We know that at least part of caveman Robin's name comes directly from the personal history of actor/writer Laurence Rickard. But what else?
