The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin review: Noel Fielding shines in unashamedly silly sitcom
Noel Fielding and co are joyously daft in this Apple TV+ comedy.
Now that Noel Fielding is regularly cosying up to Prue Leith and presiding over pomegranate delices on The Great British Bake Off, it's easy to forget that he was considered one of Britain's most subversive funnymen in the era of indie sleaze.
But the fact that his first comedic vehicle in a decade reinvents a legendary fearsome highwayman as a mild-mannered, vegan pacifist would suggest he's now scratching that surrealist itch once more.
And yet, Apple TV+'s The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is a surprisingly straightforward, if still unapologetically silly, sitcom which is unlikely to scare away much of the Bake Off audience.
There's even an early nod to the Channel 4 juggernaut when the titular bandit proudly shows off a country village he's made entirely out of courgettes. The utterly bewildering Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, this is not.
In a role which neatly brings things full circle – his first acting gig was as a brothel gent in 18th century romp Plunkett & Macleane – Fielding plays Turpin as a loveable, exquisitely coiffured fop who's an eternal disappointment to his butcher father John (Mark Heap).
But while he doesn't have a taste for killing defenceless animals ("How do you even kill a swan? Do you hit it? Do you chop it? Do you hit it with a shoe?"), he does become Hampstead's Most Wanted after accidentally killing the town's dominant thief Tom King (played by David Threlfall, who looks almost as dishevelled as Shameless's Frank Gallagher).
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Alongside his motley crew, including fickle tomboy Nell (Ellie White), needy manchild Moose (Marc Wootton) and hopeless poet Honesty (Duayne Boachie), Turpin subsequently falls foul of Jonathan Wilde (Hugh Bonneville), a corrupt chief who is unhappy that his premier source of income is now six feet under.
Cue a whole host of madcap adventures as the group try to evade capture (there's a great sight gag when their leader mistakes a closet for a secret passage), while also establishing themselves as the kind of celebrity robbers who spawn best-selling books (well, pamphlets) and a fan base more than happy to hand over all their worldly possessions.
Although there's nothing remotely accurate about its depiction of life in the 1700s, The Completely Made-Up Adventures often resembles a slightly more risqué version of Horrible Histories, its script filled with unashamedly juvenile innuendos ("I want this Dick in my hands as soon as possible," Wilde remarks, much to the amusement of his young son), and clever pop cultural references – the local pub's jobsworth-y barmaid is a tween named Little Karen, for example.
There's even the odd musical number, such as the self-aggrandising song and dance, "'Course he gives to charity, but he doesn't like to talk about it," which introduces rival Tommy Silversides (Sex Education's Connor Swindells), a vainglorious dandy who threatens to thwart Turpin's rise to the top of the highwayman league table.
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and, of course, Carry on Dick, in which Turpin is portrayed by a guffawing Sid James, are just some of the other alternative history lessons that will spring to mind throughout six episodes in which pretty much every other British comedian makes a memorable cameo.
Ever wanted to see Jessica Hynes play a cackling, soul-catching witch capable of turning humans into chickens? Or Asim Chaudhry as a clumsy trainee warlock with the distinctly unsupernatural name of Craig? Or Greg Davies as an emerald-stealing overlord who kills dog walkers for fun? Well, you're in luck.
You can understand why so many star names agreed to sign up, even when, as in the case of Paul Kaye's peasant fight club ringleader, their screen time barely lasts more than a minute.
Created by Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane – the trio also wrote episode 1 with Fielding, while episodes 2 to 6 were written by Jon Brittain and Richard Naylor with Fielding – this is a show that allows them to live out their panto fantasies without actually having to tread the boards of a regional theatre for months on end.
There are still the occasional flourishes of The Mighty Boosh's whimsy – "He's on a diet of coffee and limoncello, he's out of his mind most of the time," Turpin quips while anthropomorphising a straw man used for shooting practice - but the comedy on offer is largely of the broad variety.
You're never too far away from a pratfall, dad joke or an amusing bit of wordplay – see the gang's hapless attempts not to utter the name Reddlehag 27 times in quick succession for fear of summoning a witch, or the inspired tongue twisting conversation between Turpin and Wilde ("We had a poor rapport and I abhor a poor rapport").
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin looks like it was a lot of fun to make, and thankfully its inherent daftness is a joy to watch, too.
Indeed, at a time when the dramedy reigns supreme (the only joke to emerge from the great but incredibly serious The Bear is how it's cleaned up in the awards for comedy), it's refreshing to see a show on a prestige channel with the sole purpose of making viewers laugh.
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The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin premieres globally with the first two episodes on Friday 1st March 2024, followed by new episodes weekly, every Friday exclusively on Apple TV+.
Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.
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