‘Dick Turpin’ Fills the ‘Our Flag Means Death’ Hole in Your Heart

Have you ever heard of Dick Turpin? If you live anywhere but England, the name may sound a little unfamiliar. Thanks to a new Apple TV+ series about the infamous character, though, you’re about to become acquainted with one of the greatest (and, now, goofiest) British robbers.

The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin, premiering Friday and releasing new episodes weekly on Apple TV+, isn’t entirely made up, as the title may suggest. Dick, played by The Mighty Boosh star and Great British Baking Show host Noel Fielding, was a real highwayman in the early 1700s, although his storylines in this new series—like fighting an evil witch, for example—are fictionalized.

“Dick Turpin is, in our British folklore, a bit like Billy the Kid and Jesse James are in American folklore, or a bit like Ned Kelly is in Australian folklore,” executive producer Kenton Allen tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed over Zoom. “There was a Dick Turpin show when we were growing up as 13 year olds. We’d go out afterwards during Saturday tea time and pretend to be Dick Turpin.”

But even though Dick Turpin is a huge name in British history, his story hasn’t been told in recent years. Yes, as Allen notes, there was a drama series called Dick Turpin in 1979, but none have ventured to make Dick’s escapades seem funny.

“We thought it was a great opportunity because no one had done Dick Turpin in comedy,” Fielding adds. “We reimagined him. He’s a pacifist and a vegan and inclusive and quite creative, because that would be more fun to write and more interesting. We really love The Princess Bride and The Holy Grail, things like that.”

So instead of following a cut-and-dry biopic formula to retell Dick’s story, Allen and Fielding set forth to turn the burglar into a real jokester. The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin begins at Dick’s end: He’s about to be hanged for his plethora of crimes. But before he’s finally taken out, Dick has one final mission—he’s going to tell his life story from start to finish, detailing his many robberies and his colorful gang. Dick’s stories are too hilarious to be forgotten.

Below, Fielding and Allen chat about how fans of Paddington, Our Flag Means Death, and The Mighty Boosh will love their new show, and how they modernized a British icon.

Where did the idea for Dick Turpin come from?

Kenton Allen: I’ve always wanted to work with Noel, because The Mighty Boosh is one of the greatest comedy series of all time. But I was always a bit frightened of asking Noel to work with us because he’s a legend and unimpeachably brilliant.

Noel Fielding: What he didn’t know is I was sitting by the phone waiting for the call. [Laughs]

You were ready as soon as Kenton figured out the right role for you!

Allen: At Big Talk [Studios], we play the casting bingo game of, “Who would be a brilliant Marilyn Monroe? Jodie Comer. Who would be a brilliant X? Who would be a brilliant Y?” And my colleague said, “Who would be a brilliant Dick Turpin?” We all went, “Noel Fielding, obviously.” If you say it out loud, it’s implicit—Noel can bring his Noel Fielding-ness to that character.

Fielding: Then we went to Apple with it, and the woman who runs Apple in England, she’s the lady that used to run Channel 4 and she’s the one who put me on The Great British Bake Off. I had a bit of a relationship with her anyway. She was looking for programs for Apple and it all lined up. We didn’t really know what we wanted it to be at the beginning, we just knew we wanted it to write about Dick Turpin and his gang, and it kept evolving and changing until we settled down on the idea that he’d run this gang. He’d accidentally be in charge of this gang and replace violence with creativity.

You mentioned Bake Off, which has become huge in the United States. Was finding a global audience important to making Dick Turpin as well?

Allen: Normally you make things for U.K. broadcasters, and it goes out in Great Britain. But because we were working with Apple, we knew it was going to go out to the world. [An Apple exec] said to me, “Yeah, your show will be on three billion devices.”

Fielding: No pressure!

Allen: So we knew we needed to take the best of British comedy actors—the established guys and the new guys—and put them in this show so we can show the world how brilliant British comedy actors are.

Was it easy to round up the best of the best in the British comedy scene?

Fielding: Well, what’s good about this show is its period costumes. Everyone wants to get involved in a period costume, everyone wants to be in the show because they want to dress up as a character—they want to have a gun, they want to have a cape, they want to have a mask, they want to ride a horse.

Allen: Don’t underestimate the appeal of thigh-high boots.

Fielding: We’re Englishmen!

The show isn’t entirely anachronistic, but you have changed the character—he talks about pleather, being vegan, he’s got quite a modern personality—a lot. How did you decide what aspects of Dick Turpin you wanted to keep and which to alter?

Fielding: We mined the actual history of Dick Turpin and [changed] just the storylines, really. There was a character called the Reddlehag, which is [the focus of] Episode 4, about this witch that terrorizes the village. There was a character called the Reddlehag. Sometimes we sort of found these jewels and thought, “Oh, we can make a story out of that.”

Allen: There was a Thief-Taker General.

Fielding: Yeah, Jonathan Wilde!

Yes, he’s played by Hugh Bonneville—what was it like to work with him?

Fielding: When Hugh Bonneville said he would play that character, that was very exciting. He’s probably our global trump card because of Downton Abbey, people probably know him. It was really nice to work with Hugh, actually, because we had quite a good double act. You never know when that’s going to happen. Some people, you just have good chemistry with. Kenton knows Hugh and suggested Hugh, but the director of Boosh—Paul King—did Paddington, and Hugh was in that. He’s amazing in that.

There are some other Mighty Boosh stars in Dick Turpin. How did they get involved?

Fielding: There’s quite a few Boosh faces in there, as well as peripheral people from the Boosh. There are lots of people in it that I really wanted to work with and never had the opportunity to. It’s quite a big ensemble cast, so that really helps in taking the pressure off myself and the gang, because there’s always a good guest role. Joe Wilkinson’s in it—he’s quite a big comedian in England. There’s a certain type of comedy actor or comedian in Britain that lends themself to this show in a definite way.

Allen: Connor Swindells, too. We didn’t know he was in Barbie, but he’s perfect for Tommy Silversides. He didn’t mention Barbie [during the casting process]!

How did you find Connor if not from Barbie? Did you see him in Sex Education?

Fielding: He did something for charity, like a fake advert, and that’s when we saw him.

Allen: He did a CPR advert where he was doing CPR on a dummy of himself.

Fielding: He played this cocky, weird character, and in that minute, we just went, “That’s the guy. He’s incredible. He’s gotta be Silversides.” Now he’s in Barbie, now he’s in Hollywood, so we’ll never see him again. But we got him just before he went off!

A lot of people have compared the show to Our Flag Means Death, based on the trailer. Do you think fans of that show will enjoy Dick Turpin?

Fielding: I love Taika [Waititi]. I think The Mighty Boosh existed in the same world as Flight of the Conchords. There was always a crossover, we were really good friends. They were always trying to get me into their show—they wanted me to play David Bowie in their show, but I couldn’t do it. We loved What We Do in the Shadows. I’m sure there is a crossover! But when I saw that they were doing that show, we purposefully didn’t watch it because we thought, “Oh, no. We don’t want to know. It’s better if we don’t see it.” I’m sure [Our Flag] is great, but I haven’t seen it.

Allen: They blazed the trail for us, in terms of being the first period comedy to be a massive hit. It’s adjacent to Our Flag, that’s what we like to think. We shot a pilot in the middle of the pandemic, before Our Flag was a thing. Even though no one knew about it, we were slightly ahead of them.

Our Flag was sadly canceled, so you’ve got this fanbase that’s hungry for a new period comedy. Maybe Dick Turpin can be a replacement of-sorts.

Fielding: I feel like the people who liked The Mighty Boosh also liked Flight of the Conchords, and I feel like people who like Flag will like our show as well. Comedy fans are very specific. They know they like certain comedy.

Allen: I have a 14-year-old son, so when I’ve shown my son this show, it’s the only thing I’ve produced where his reaction is, “Can I watch the next one?” So it’s good for parents of tweenagers and teenagers, you can watch it with your kids and have a good time with it. It’s got that four quadrant appeal, as Americans say.