Disney+ has announced a second season of the hit Australian Original series The Artful Dodger, thanks to its strong performance locally and internationally.
The eight-episode Season 2 has an all-star returning cast including Thomas Brodie-Sangster (The Queen’s Gambit, Wolf Hall) as Jack Dawkins aka The Artful Dodger, David Thewlis (Landscapers, Fargo) as Fagin, and Maia Mitchell (Good Trouble, Never Goin’ Back) as Lady Belle Fox. They team up with a full ensemble of Australian and New Zealand cast and several new cameos.
Watch the Trailer for The Artful Dodger Season 1
Series co-creator James McNamara is leading the writing team with Kate Mulvany, Dan Knight and Miranda Tapsell. Ben Young and Gracie Otto serve as Directors, with Jeffrey Walker consulting.
Artful Dodger: filming
Season 2 will be filmed in 2025 at the historic Callan Park in Sydney, and pick up where the heart’s desires of Dodger, Fagin and Lady Belle left off, promising ‘more cunning thievery, snappy humour, life-and-death surgeries, and romance with a twist’.
The Walt Disney Company Australia and New Zealand Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Kylie Watson-Wheeler, said: ‘We’re thrilled to give our global audiences what they’ve been asking for, with a second season of The Artful Dodger set to start filming in 2025.’
In his four-star review of The Artful Dodger for ScreenHub, critic Stephen A Russell wrote:
‘At the risk of opening up the unending vortex of Christmas opinion pieces by uttering the name of said film, Thomas Brodie-Sangster – now 33, but still supremely youthful-looking – has come a long way since playing the kid in Love Actually. His latest role in Disney+ miniseries The Artful Dodger, dropping just in time for silly season, suggests that one of Charles Dickens’ most memorable characters has come a long way, too. All the way to Australia, no less.
‘Jack Dawkins – aka the Artful Dodger – is one of the ‘roistering and swaggering’ young thieves, employed by malignant criminal overlord Fagin, who manipulates the eponymous Oliver Twist in Dickens’ rollicking story that depicts the unfortunate beginnings and subsequent redemption of its titular hero. First published in serial form before being bound as a three-volume book in 1838, the misadventure delivers a considerably less fortunate outcome for Jack.
‘After he’s caught red-handed with a stolen silver snuff box, it’s intimated that Jack will be transported to the penal colonies recently established by the invading British forces. A fate made explicit by The Artful Dodger’s trio of showrunners, James McNamara, David Maher and David Taylor. But things haven’t turned out quite as tough luck for the street-sweeping snatcher as that destiny might suggest …’ Read more …
Disney+ Australia’s locally produced content has included scripted series The Artful Dodger and The Clearing, docuseries Matildas: The World At Our Feet and Shipwreck Hunters Australia, and lifestyle general entertainment series Donna Hay Christmas.
The latest Australian Original scripted drama Last Days of the Space Age debuted on Disney+ in October 2024. In his 3.5 star review of Last Days of the Space Age for ScreenHub, Anthony Morris wrote:
It’s the end of the 70s – Skylab is overhead, but it’s looking a bit wobbly – and the quiet Perth suburb of Scarborough is looking to the future. For the Bissett family, today might be a bit rough, but tomorrow holds a lot of promise.
‘Teen daughter Tilly (Mackenzie Mazur) sees her destiny in the stars. Space still seems a vast and wonderous place, even if her sidekick Johnno (Aidan Du Chiem) has just told her he plans to keep his feet firmly on the ground.
‘Her sister Mia (Emily Grant) is less interested in study and more on board with her surfboard, though this being the late 70s the waves are still ruled by the boys. At least she has her beach bum granddad Bob (Iain Glenn) to back her up …’ Read more …
Artful Dodger: production deets
The Artful Dodger Season 2 is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television’s Curio Pictures. Curio Pictures’ Jo Porter and Rachel Gardner are Executive Producer/Producers, with James McNamara as Executive Producer and Cameron Welsh (Foundation, Krypton) as Series Producer. The series was co-created by James McNamara, David Maher and David Taylor.
NSW State Government is supporting Season 2 through Screen NSW’s Made in NSW Fund. Post, digital and visual effects also supported by Screen NSW.
