The Artful Dodger; Around The World In 80 Weighs

“The Artful Dodger is a romp. It’s fast and great fun, with a script that is admirably better than it needs to be (the rubies in that necklace shine “Like sun through summer wine,” says Fagin longingly. “Makes you almost wanna taste them.”). There are signs early on that it could also be more than just a romp. Dodger and Fagin’s reunion is painful. The former is wounded by the latter’s abandonment of him to his fate, and Fagin himself is caught in a rare moment of truth when he says he welcomed the gallows in recompense for betraying the boy: “I have always loved you, in my own odd way.” Like Dickens in his original form, it moves you suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. This potentially knotty relationship is quickly given up as they embark on their new life of crime together, with Dodger’s pain dissipating into mild resentment as he finds himself back to his old tricks. But it retains some heart and all of its easy charm. Let it lighten your mood and take your mind off things for an hour or so. The world will go back to trying to saw your leg off with a rusty blade soon enough.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“As the BBC’s recent prequel series Dodger has also shown, if you’re going to revive this character you may as well do it with a whole dollop of irreverence. And this series hits the ground running like a sub-Guy Ritchie blast of fun, the newly respectable Dawkins being given plenty of zip and charisma from the impish-faced Thomas Brodie-Sangster, once the boy in Love Actually who embraced getting “the shit kicked out of him by love” but who has since shown quite a talent for swaggering turns in The Queen’s Gambit and Pistol.”
James Jackson, The Times

“Contemporary music blasts over the opening credits, and in the background of almost every scene there are extras milling about swilling tankards while shouting, “Whooaaaargh!” The script isn’t quite as sharp as, say, The Great or David Copperfield, but The Artful Dodger is still tremendously jolly and lots of fun. And completely disgusting.”
Marianne Levy, The i

“What, you thought Fagin was hanged? Pah, that’s just Dickens. Fagin somehow escaped the gallows and got his own passage to Australia. He’s played brilliantly by David Thewlis, thank goodness, otherwise this series would not have been worth anyone’s time. His arrival makes for a decent opening episode, but from there it’s downhill. Fagin repeatedly tempts Dodger back into crime. Dodger gets involved, but also becomes the first person in Australia to repair a perforated bowel.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“The psychology of food and nutrition, the economics of food and the systemic factors surrounding obesity are all complex issues, as are the beauty standards marketed to us as ideals every single day. The production and sale of unhealthy food is a vastly profitable industry, and, unsurprisingly, the government is unwilling to do anything serious to regulate it. Around the World in 80 Weighs wades in jauntily, but this is too tricky a subject for TV so light.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“These young women were brave to face the mockery of strangers in the street, and braver still to be filmed doing it. But if there was any support from dieticians or therapists on the production crew, we saw no sign of it. They were left to cope with their experiences in Japan, however humiliating, with only the help of a couple of YouTubers called Mr and Mrs Eats, acting as tour guides. This verged on treating the six as exhibits in a freakshow. Any benefit gained from their insights into Japanese culture was likely to be overshadowed by their humiliations.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail