'Dick Turpin' Returns to the Highway for Season 2

Hitch up your skirts and saddle your ponies; Dick Turpin rides at... well, not dawn; he's a man who likes breakfast and also travels during reasonable hours. However, despite his inability to be an early bird (who wants to eat worms anyway?), the entirely SEO-unfriendly The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin has been renewed for a second season. Broadcast UK broke the news while we were on holiday here in the States for Independence Day, as the new season of the surprisingly sweet Apple TV+ series began filming at the top of July 2024.

Noel Fielding, best known in the U.K. as a comedian for his series The Mighty Boosh but better known in the U.S as the stable half of the hosting team on The Great British Baking Show since it moved from PBS to Netflix, is confirmed to return, reprising his role as the eponymous anti-hero. Fielding will also be part of the writing team again, rejoining with Season 1 scribes Jon Brittain (The Crown) and Richard Naylor (Red Dwarf).

Season 1 featured Fielding's Dick Turpin facing off against thief-taker Jonathan Wilde, played by PBS favorite Hugh Bonneville. However, with the third Downton Abbey movie currently also filming, it seems unlikely Bonneville will be returning for this second set of adventures, or if he does, it will be in a much-reduced role. That tracks, though, as Fielding and Bonneville basically acted as the lures to draw audiences in while the series introduced Americans to a cast of up-and-coming British comedic talent. Now that audiences already know them, Bonneville's job here is done, and he can return to accidentally losing all his wife's money as Lord Grantham.