What is it with TV shows set in the 19th century and their obsession with sawing off limbs? Paramount+’s The Doll Factory recently treated viewers to the nauseating spectacle of surgeons competing to hack off patients’ legs in under a minute – and following in its wake is Disney+’s The Artful Dodger, which ups the ante by opening with a gruesome operation carried out in less than 30 seconds.
If the name of the show is familiar, then yes it refers to that Artful Dodger, ripped from the pages of Dickens and now all grown up. In this show, the top-hatted pickpocket from Oliver Twist is now putting those famous fast fingers to good use. Dodge (played by the perpetually youthful Thomas Brodie-Sangster) is making a living as a surgeon Down Under. Having been left to rot in a prison cell at the end of Oliver Twist by Fagin, he was rescued by a ship’s doctor and has since gone straight.
That is, until he lands himself in an enormous pile of debt from a game of cards gone wrong – and to make matters worse, who should turn up at his front door but Fagin (David Thewliss). You thought he was dead? So did Dodge, but as it turns out, the hanging “didn’t take” and now he’s been deported.
And so the stage is set for some epic hijinks, as Fagin attempts to convince Dodge to stray back into a life of crime, and Dodge attempts to keep his past under wraps. This being a surgeon-focused show (a sort of Victorian Gray’s Anatomy), it’s not for the faint of heart: arms and legs are merrily removed; characters are regularly up to their elbows in gore and far more human insides are on display than might be expected from a Disney show.
Good thing it’s also tremendous fun. David Thewlis chews scenery so hard he must have cracked a tooth during filming: his Fagin is wonderfully awful, entirely unrepentant and always on the hunt for more money-making schemes (he spends much of episode two running an elaborate con that repurposes a condemned woman’s tailbone as the holy relic of “St Coccyx”). Beside him, all Dodge has to do is play a decent straight man, which (phew) he does.
There’s also a welcome cheeky streak that runs throughout this entire show. Florid Dickensian names like Sir Jeremy Glasscock and Darius Cracksworth are sprinkled throughout, Fagin reminisces on things being “the worst of times, the best of times” and Oliver Twist is speedily condemned as a “wet lettuce”, which – I mean, they’re not wrong. And that's before he even shows up.
There's also a secondary plotline about Lady Belle Fox, aka the governor’s daughter (Maia Mitchell), plotting to become a successful surgeon in her own right. This, of course, also involves blackmailing Dodge about his past – and gives rise to the inevitable will-they-won’t-they, “oh no she’s burnt her leg and he has to treat it by lifting up her skirt” scenes.
While the cast sell the rom-com-lite with conviction, it fails to ignite. But The Artful Dodger's main storyline has more than enough to keep the attention, the costumes are wonderful and it has a rampant sense of fun. And in David Thewlis picking more than a pocket or two, the show has its real trump card. More please.
