‘The Completely Made-Up Adventures Of Dick Turpin’ is an absolute hoot
Live MintFirst I must doff my hat to the show’s title. The Completely Made-Up Adventures Of Dick Turpin, a comedy on Apple TV+, sounded to me merely irreverent, a funny anachronistic take on something historical, till you consider that history itself is largely made-up and bastardised. “You write about the most horrific murder and people can’t get enough of it.” Turpin’s adventures here are embellished with lavish production values and cinematic sequences—including redheaded witches who turn men into chickens—and the entire ensemble is studded with popular favourites from current British comedy. Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey is Turpin’s nemesis, the thieftaker Jonathan Wilde, out to earn a 95% commission on all robberies, and the actor plays him with pomp, while Tamsin Greig plays his boss, the head of The Syndicate, a criminal organisation that watches over “kidnappers in Cornwall, burglars in Berkshire, and every estate agent in England”. “Well, he steals from the rich,” explains Baldrick, “but he hasn’t got around to giving it to the poor yet.” Created by Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane, The Completely Made-Up Adventures Of Dick Turpin is immediately entertaining and bingeable, as well as almost entirely unmemorable.