Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Completely Made-Up Adventures Of Dick Turpin’ On Apple TV+, Where Noel Fielding Plays A Very Unlikely Leader Of A Gang Of Outlaws

If you were annoyed that Our Flag Means Death got cancelled, a new Apple TV+ comedy series may fill the bill for you. It stars Noel Fielding, who has been making Brits and others laugh since he was in The Mighty Boosh, and most people know lately from The Great British Bake-Off. But is it actually funny?

THE COMPLETELY MADE-UP ADVENTURES OF DICK TURPIN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “England, 1735. Just Before Bedtime.” An aristocrat and his wife enjoy some wine in their carriage.

The Gist: The carriage is quickly overtaken by a notorious “highwayman” named Dick Turpin (Noel Fielding), who is so famous that the aristocrat is honored to be robbed by him. But that’s just a dream; he’s actually going to be taken to be hanged.

He pays for a professional mourner to wail for him during the hanging, then gets in the wagon with his fellow executees. Before hitting the gallows, though, the group stops at a pub for lunch. A writer named Eliza Bean (Dolly Wells) sees Turpin and knows his reputation; she writes true-crime stories and wants him to tell all his stories for her readers.

Dick goes back to the beginning, where he’s the vegan son of a pig butcher. When he and his father mutually agree that the life of a pig butcher isn’t for him, Dick takes his sewing machine and purple shoes and decamps at a local pub. Not long after, in walks a gang of outlaws led by Tom King (David Threlfall): Honesty Barebone (Duayne Boachie), Moose Pleck (Marc Wootton) and Nicholas Fraser (Ellie White), who’s actually a woman named Nell pretending to be a man. There’s also a guy named Steve (Harry Trevaldwyn), whom King shoots when Steve pipes up that “it’s actually Steven.”

This means there’s an opening in the group; Dick volunteers, thinking he can apply his particular skillset to robbing and plundering. The next morning, the self-proclaimed “master of disguise” poses as a person from fifteen minutes in the future in order to gain access to an aristocrat’s carriage. The aristocrat sees through the very thin ruse, but King manages to ambush the carriage, anyway, loosening a cartwheel along the way. In the aftermath, Dick’s satchel gets caught in a tree; it falls right on top of King’s head right as he’s about to shoot Dick for his screwup. Rather than being angry, the crew is relieved that King is dead and they anoint Dick as their new leader — Nell wanted to be leader, but the other guys know that she buckles under pressure.

But all is not well; Jonathan Wilde (Hugh Bonneville), the “Thieftaker General”, wants to continue the arrangement he had with King, which is that he takes 95% of the gang’s plunder. Dick boldly disagrees, so Wilde and his army capture Dick — the gang gets away through the secret tunnel he accidentally found in the pub when he was there earlier. As Dick tells this story to Eliza and his fellow prisoners, he’s confident his gang will help him escape.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Completely Made-Up Adventures Of Dick Turpin has a similar vibe as the recently-canceled Our Flag Means Death.

Our Take: The Completely Made-Up Adventures Of Dick Turpin is a show that should be better than it is. Fielding is one of the show’s writers and executive producers, along with Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane, and it’s one of those shows that tries hard to be funny but pretty much misses the mark at every turn. But, Fielding makes an interesting reluctant antihero, which could be this show’s saving grace.

Dick Turpin is not an arrogant prick who thinks he’s an expert but is just an inept boob. He’s actually a well-meaning guy in search of a purpose in life — who just happens to be an inept boob. Given how he accidentally ends up being the leader of King’s gang, watching him fumble his way to success in the highway robbery game should be fun to watch.

But much of what passes as funny in that first episode comes less out of just who Dick is and more about making anachronistic gags that aren’t particularly sharp, and sometimes get repeated to the point of annoyance. When Wilde tells Dick what the deal he had with King was, he gets constantly sidelined by his young son Christopher (Samuel Leakey), who is there because “we don’t currently have childcare.” The gag is mildly funny the first time, but when it’s repeated in slightly different form a couple of times, it doesn’t get any funnier.

The show needs to balance the silly moments with funny character moments if it’s going to get any better. We mostly saw the silly moments in the first episode, and when silly doesn’t make us laugh, then it’s a big problem.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Wilde puts up a poorly-sketched Wanted poster for Dick Turpin. After he and Christopher walk away, Dick sees the poster and smiles.

Sleeper Star: Ellie White’s character Nell is one of the funnier members of Dick’s gang, especially because she’s the one member not 100 percent behind Dick being the leader.

Most Pilot-y Line: The cartwheel loosened up during Dick’s first mission with King’s gang keeps coming back throughout the episode. Again, it’s a repeated gag that doesn’t get any funnier the more we see it.

Our Call: SKIP IT. While we like Fielding in the lead role, The Completely Made-Up Adventures Of Dick Turpin mostly misses the mark when it comes to the silly gags that permeate the first episode.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.