Long before the days of horror movies and doomscrolling, audiences partial to gnarly spectacle found their entertainment elsewhere – including live surgeries and good old-fashioned public hangings. Both are recurring events in The Artful Dodger, Disney+’s darkly comedic eight-part series set in Australia circa the 1850s. The plot zigzags around the exploits of the titular Dickensian character – real name Jack Dawkins – who appeared in Oliver Twist as the leader of a gang of pipsqueak riff-raff. Now he lives on in his own semi-ridiculous narrative, which imagines he scooted off to Australia and became a surgeon, all the while continuing his thoroughly dodgy ways.
