I recently finished watching the new streaming show The Artful Dodger on Disney+, a show that takes that fabled character from Oliver Twist and shows what he may have gotten up to in later years. We meet Dodger, going by his real name Jack Dawkins, in Australia setting up a new life for himself as a successful surgeon but his rogueish tendancies keep coming back to the fore.

I watched the first episode and then didn’t go back to it for a bit, but I’m glad I stuck with it as the series really grew into itself as it unfolded. The Governer’s daughter, Belle, who wants to be a surgeon but is hampered by her position, her gender, and by an unfortunate condition, is brilliant fighting against the world at all turns.

David Thewlis quite quickly turns up as Fagin, putting a fly in the ointment for our hero who was desperately trying to move on from his past and doesn’t know whether to trust his old mentor or not. There are dodgy dealings, gambling dens, money heists and the threat of hanging always not too far away. I really loved, too, when Oliver Twist himself turned up towards the end of the series, and how much distaste our main characters had for him, the ’lettuce'.

I wasn’t expecting this show and I don’t know if anyone had been asking for it, but in the end I really enjoyed it thanks to a fantastic cast, a pacy script, and an intriguing setting both location-wise and in history. I hope there’s more because it does feel like there’s plenty more to be explored in Dodger’s world.