'The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin' Look Like a Hoot

The 2024 Winter Television Critics Association press tour kicked off on February 5, 2024, the first major TV presentation since the end of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023. Apple TV+ kicked off the event with a full slate of upcoming series and returning hits it had lined up for the first half of the year. Panels ranged from the period drama The New Look, which focused on the post-World War II rise of the fashion industry to Palm Royale, Carol Burnett's return to comedy at 90. But it was the trailer for The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin that had critics hooting.

Like The New Look, The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is based on a real piece of history. An English highwayman, he started out as part of a gang of deer thieves before graduating to more hardboiled crime, becoming a poacher, burglar, horse thief, and eventually a murderer. (Deer thieving was the slippery slope of the early 1700s.) He was also the subject of Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth's fictional story of a wild overnight 200 km ride on his horse, Black Bess.

Fielding's take on the character is not exactly historically accurate, putting Dick Turpin in the same category as other popular British historical comedies like Drunk History, Horrible Histories, and the like. However, with a brilliant supporting cast and writers, this series looks like Apple TV+ has landed a must watch for fans of British comedies.