A merry man at the movies

A roll of drums, a fanfare, the archer raises his bow, pulls back the arrow, lets it go and, with a loud twang of bow-string, it whooshes through the air and hits a tree trunk. Zap. And that, as any child of the late 1950s will recall, is the point at which five wonderful words spin onto the screen: The Adventures of Robin Hood.

The TV series, starring Richard Greene, may get the odd nostalgic mention in the run-up to the May 14 release of Ridley Scott's new Robin Hood film, starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. People will talk about Sherwood Forest and Nottingham, but – to get to the point – I'm perversely watching the old version in Derby, which has generally suffered by comparison with its Midlands neighbour.

Where Nottingham has always seemed a thriving city, Derby has felt more like a town, and a sometimes neglected one at that. Well, things are changing. It's in the throes of a 2bn regeneration project.

One of its most fascinating new attractions is the BFI Mediatheque, a "digital jukebox of film and TV" where over 1,500 films and programmes are there for the viewing (free). Which is how I come to be watching this Robin Hood.

Mediatheque is part of QUAD, a new media and visual arts centre that looks like an enormous packing case on stilts and makes an undeniable impact.

But first things first. Derby has traditionally been a railway town, with the Midland Railway company once its biggest employer. So doff your cap to the past and arrive by train at the bright new station. Outside is Britain's first railway hotel – the Midland Hotel. Built in 1840 in a foursquare redbrick Georgian style, it has recently been smartly refurbished as "Derby's premium boutique style hotel".

Across the way are Britain's first railway cottages, built for company employees as a trim little urban estate.

The main pedestrian route into town goes past them, before reaching one of modern Derby's most trumpeted developments, the vast new Westfield Derby shopping complex. It includes a 12-screen multiplex where, last year, I saw The Damned United, the fabulously entertaining film about Brian Clough. The audience sat in awed silence; it was like an act of worship.

People who like shopping complexes will love Westfield. People who would rather spend a week on a melting iceberg with a polar bear may prefer the nearby Market Hall. Here, under a vaulted Victorian roof, are aisles of reassuringly traditional stalls – Jan's Jewels, Flowers by Joy, Julian's Tackle (fishing, since you ask). One stall boasts: "The Largest Selection of Ladies and Gents Slippers in Derby".

Over at the side is a Christian Science Reading Room. When I came last year, I suggested to the lady behind the counter that this was an unusual thing to find in a market hall. "Well," said Sandra Smith, "one of our dear ladies, Queenie, said Jesus went into the market place, so we thought we'd go into the market place too."

But we need to drag ourselves away and see some of Derby's more mainstream tourist sites. Looming over the town centre, and aptly next to Amen Alley, is the truly towering tower of the cathedral. Inside is the tomb of Bess of Hardwick.

Hands pressed piously together, her monument proclaims shrewdly accumulated wealth, even if her face is an unhealthy shade of alabaster.

More quietly impressive is an 1832 memorial to a grieving young woman in nearby St Werburgh's church by the great Sheffield sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey. The building is now partly in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. Dr Johnson got married here in 1735; he was 25, his bride Elizabeth was 46.

The key to St Werburgh's is kept across the road at the Museum and Art Gallery, where the pictures of Joseph Wright show an artist always up for a challenge. Not for him full daylight as an easy light source for his pictures. Candles, sunsets, lanterns, furnaces, moonlight, even Bunsen burners lit them dramatically.

Along smart Georgian streets, past innumerable caf bars, and down what a passer-by describes as "a quainty little road" – is the Silk Mill, reckoned to be Britain's first factory. It now houses Derby's industrial museum and will be a paradise for lovers of Rolls-Royce engines. Don't miss the 1,000-horsepower turboprop.

Also don't miss the "Driver's Eye View" of a 90-minute train journey from Derby to York. It's absolutely mesmeric, a sort of inter-city meditation.

I rouse myself from my trance and relive part of the same journey in reality. And I spend the evening singing "Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen..."

Derby tourist information: 01332 255802 (www.visitderby.co.uk)

YP MAG 24/4/10