After a long uncommitted relationship comes to a close, script editor Norah Palmer (Anna Cropper, DEAD OF NIGHT's "The Exorcism") - who hates waste of any kind (including the years she put into the relationship) - decides to clear her head by going to stay at the country cottage - known locally as "The Place of Birds" - they restored but never used. At first she finds the village and the villagers slightly eccentric - from nosy housekeeper Mrs. Vigo (Freda Bamford, THE IPCRESS FILE) to learned Mr. Fisher (Bernard Hepton, BARRY LYNDON) to handsome karate-kicking hermit handyman Rob (stuntman Andy Bradford, FLASH GORDON) - but soon begins to suspect something more sinister behind the quaint local observance of ancient traditions. When she becomes pregnant during a Harvest Festival day dalliance with Rob - her contraceptive cap (or "precautions") having disappeared mysteriously only to reappear afterwards - Norah flees back to the city while deciding what to do about the baby. When she returns to the country late in her pregnancy, she realizes that she has been part of a sinister plot and a series of coincidences makes it impossible for her to get away before the town's Easter observances (with whatever plans the locals have for her baby). Amanda Walker (FIERCE CREATURES) and Julian Holloway (DEAD OF NIGHT's "A Woman Sobbing" also penned by Bowen) also star as Norah's city friends.

Although BFI's essay booklet identifies ROBIN REDBREAST as a precursor to THE WICKER MAN's brand of "folk horror", it also acknowledges certain predecessors like Hammer's THE WITCHES (1966) and BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1970). John Bowen's teleplay, inspired by the pitchfork murder of a hermit in an English village a few years before and the growing interest/resurgence of Paganism following the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in the fifties, is not overtly supernatural; but it does not have to be as the divide between cynicism as represented by the urbanites ("Something boring has happened: I appear to be pregnant") and the belief of the locals (Norah initially ascribes more prurient motives to certain characters' actions and does not immediately make connections between events because "it's such a complicated plot if it is a plot"). Had Norah not returned to the village for the finale, the script could just as believably have continued on as a drama about a middle-aged single mother in conservative seventies Britain (the very mention of the contraceptive cap was enough for Bowen's script to be rejected for the suspense series for which it was originally conceived). Although the color video production only survives as a black and white 16mm telerecording, the soft, monochrome image contributes to the dreamlike feel as well as enhancing the chilly and desolate atmosphere.