The show shut down for Christmas and is unable to resume filming. 

The Apple TV+ comedy The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin landed its first season last year. With comic Noel Fielding in the lead role, the series took a tongue in cheek approach to history. It presented the notorious Turpin with a less violent, more victim-focussed approach to highway robbery.

It was a return to comic acting for Fielding, who has been a stalwart of panel shows for a number of years, as well as host of The Great British Bake Off. The comic first rose to prominence alongside Julian Barratt through various iterations of with their surreal show The Mighty Boosh.

Scoring a recommission, production recommenced on the Big Talk Studios show in the autumn and paused for Christmas. However, it’s now reported (first in Deadline and now more widely) that the show won’t be continuing.

Season 2

While the shoot was approximately three-quarters complete, there’s apparently not enough footage in the can to even consider the possibility of a shortened run of episodes. Season 2 was to see Jason Isaacs, Dawn French and Miranda Richardson joining the show’s existing cast.

Noel Fielding’s representatives PBJ Management, have shed some light telling Deadline “one of the main cast members who has not been well is not recovered enough to complete the filming.”  The suggestion is that the cast member in question is Fielding himself.

Of course, this is an unusual and very unfortunate situation for all the cast and crew with potentially devastating effects for people’s livelihoods. Additionally, there’s plenty of tabloid speculation – particularly surrounding the potential knock-on effect to The Great British Bake Off.

We’d like to wish the poorly cast member, be it Fielding or someone else, all the very best.