Summary

The finale of
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin
is a perfect end to a top comedy series, and we have an exclusive clip.
Dick Turpin’s character is charming, an incongruously vegan, creative pacifist in this historical fiction show that changes the narrative of the real Dick Turpin.
The show cleverly plays with storytelling becoming history and myth, adding depth to the comedic narrative.

The finale of The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin airs Friday, March 29, following the cliffhanger of episode five, “Tommy Silversides.” It’s a perfect end to one of the best new comedy series in some time, and finally brings Tamsin Greig’s evil criminal mastermind together with her daughter and Noel Fielding’s wonderful Dick Turpin character. We have an exclusive clip from the finale that you can watch above, and read on to see what Fielding and producer Kenton Allen said to MovieWeb about creating the show.

The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin 4.5/5 Release Date March 1, 2024 Cast Noel Fielding , Duayne Boachie , Ellie White , Marc Wootton , Dolly Wells , Mark Heap , David Threlfall , Geoff McGivern , Joe Wilkinson , Kiri Flaherty , Hugh Bonneville , Asim Chaudhry , Greg Davies Seasons 1 Writers Claire Downes , Ian Jarvis , Stuart Lane , Jon Brittain , Richard Naylor Streaming Service(s) Apple TV+ Directors Ben Palmer , George Kane

For those in the U.S., Dick Turpin may sound like another fanciful fictional name for a Fielding character, like Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh, but he remains a legendary figure in England. There was even a four-series show about him in the early 1980s, simply titled Dick Turpin. Fielding and Allen’s show (created by Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis, and Stuart Lane) abandons the pretense of historical accuracy with its very title, The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin.

“We looked him up on Wikipedia,” laughed Fielding, who can also be seen hosting Celebrity Bake Off these days (and, of course, The Great British Bake Off).

“We did actually,” added Allen. “A good 15 minutes of research.”

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Dick Turpin: The Robin Hood You Didn’t Know You Needed

“You know what, we did lots of research in the beginning,” admitted Fielding. “And obviously, we grow up knowing about Dick Turpin. He’s like Robin Hood for us, he’s a similar sort of legend. So we sort of grew up knowing who he is, but then I don’t think we ever knew any of the details. And we started to look him up, and realized he was a sort of violent criminal who was famous for riding a horse to York and then got hanged. So there wasn’t like an enormous pull for me, as a sort of comedy actor.” He continued:

”
So we realized that we needed our Dick to be a bit more charming and a bit more inclusive, and a vegan, and a pacifist, and maybe creative
, and those were all the things that we wanted to kind of put into the new Dick, our Dick. But then I realized actually, you know, a large amount of that is what I always do naturally anyway.”

So it’s quite funny, actually, people have said to me that this Dick is a bit like Vince Noir’s uncle. But I think some of that just comes from my hippy upbringing. I’m not really a man of action. I like drawing.

However, playing with historical accuracy adds to one of the show’s themes, namely how storytelling becomes history and myth, with the series cleverly including a writer who follows Turpin’s gang around and makes them out to be much more professional and accomplished than they actually are. The show plays with artifice and the fiction behind history, epitomized in both Dick Turpin (positively as the protagonist) and Tommy Silversides (negatively as the antagonist), neither of whom are what they appear to be.

Produced by Apple TV+ and Big Talk Studios, part of ITV Studios, The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is created by Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis, and Stuart Lane, and written by Jon Brittain, Richard Naylor, Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane, with Noel Fielding. The series is executive produced by Kenton Allen, Noel Fielding, Victoria Grew and Ben Palmer. The finale premieres March 29 on Apple TV+ and you can watch all episodes through the link below:

Watch on Apple TV+