Dick Le Rebelle

I loved this series when it was first transmitted and recently reacquainted myself with the series on DVD. Is it still worth watching?

First of all, this Dick Turpin is presented as an adventurer, friend of the poor, chivalrous to women, the voice of wisdom to his young sidekick Swiftnick.

Impeccably cast, Richard O'Sullivan has a whale of a time as the highwayman, and is hugely entertaining to watch. Michael Deeks (whatever happened to him?) is endearingly dumb as Swiftnick, while Christopher Benjamin is the blustering baddie, although more of a Lestrade than a Moriarty to O'Sullivan's Holmes!

The prints currently available on DVD really are awful though for a series which is less than thirty years old; this aside, if you are in the mood for some boy's own adventure, this is the series to watch. Enjoy.

Why are users giving this wonderful piece of TV a bum rap ?

First of all the casting of Richard O'Sullivan was inspired, an actor known solely for one comic role spun over nearly a decade made the character his own. This was ripping boys own stuff. Top entertainment with characterisation as good as you could expect from Richard Carpenter, a man with a track record of success.

Each story is well contained within a 25 minute timeframe. I have recently purchased the DVD of series 1 and having watched them all at the rate of 1 a week would recommend them to anyone with an interest in light drama.

Fantastic production design. Finely crafted stories. Inspired casting.

I watched it when I was a kid. I remember counting the days between the weekly airings. Heck, for me he was almost bigger than Robin Hood. So all in all I am probably a bit biased, but I recently bought the box set and found myself binge watching it and being genuinely entertained.

The first film made by RKO Pictures, together with London Weekend Television, the film version also starred Mary Crosby, who had just finished shooting "JR" in the TV series DALLAS.

Not a wonderful movie, but RKO had just gotten started and could only co-produce in the early years. The terrific experience working with LWT led RKO to establish its post-production and international distribution headquarters in London. In fact, RKO hired several people from LWT and staffed its London office completely with people from the British film industry. For many years, the British contingent at RKO ran production and international sales.

I used to watch this series on TV back in the day when I was a kid, sometime during the 1980s. And I do actually remember it as being a good series and entertaining, especially for a young boy. And thus, as I had the opportunity to revisit the series here in 2024, of course I did so without a second thought.

The storyline told over the four seasons is a well-written and entertaining one. It is a storyline of highway robbery and swashbuckling, mixed with a light sense of comedy and some interesting characters. I have to say that I was genuinely entertained throughout the course of the four seasons. One thing about the seasons did puzzle me though, why the series started out with 13 episodes in season one, then was drastically reduced to 7, 5 and 6 episodes in seasons 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Nevertheless, the episodes proved entertaining as the story progressed.

Richard O'Sullivan did a great job in portraying the highway man Dick Turpin, as did Michael Deeks as Swiftnick. There are some good performances and a couple of familiar faces on the cast list as well, with the likes of David Daker, Mary Crosby, Patrick Macnee and Donald Pleasance.

If you enjoy period dramas and swashbuckling, then "Dick Turpin" is definitely a series well-worth sitting down and watching. And for a series that ran from 1979 to 1982, I have to say that the show actually still holds up today, which is a great testimony to the production value and the effort put into creating the series back then.

There is a good amount of fencing in the series, and it was performed quite nicely on the screen. And also a fair amount of gunfights, so the series definitely has some action elements to it as well.

It was definitely worth the effort of sitting down and revisiting it here in 2024. However, it would have been nice if they had at least ensured a proper ending to the series, and not leave the audience hanging - no pun intended.

My rating of "Dick Turpin" lands on a well-deserved six out of ten stars.