🔗 Share this article

What could you do if that wildest companion from your teenage years got back in touch? Imagine if you were dying of cancer and had nothing to lose? What if you were plagued by remorse for getting your friend imprisoned 10 years ago? If you were the one she landed in the clink and your release was granted to succumb to illness in her care? What if you had been a almost unstoppable pair of con artists who retained a stash of disguises from your prime and a deep desire for one last thrill?

All this and more are the questions that Frauds, a new drama featuring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, flings at us on a exhilarating, intense six-part ride that follows two female fraudsters bent on pulling off one last job. Echoing an earlier work, Jones co-created this with a writing partner, and it retains similar qualities. Just as a suspense-driven structure was used as background to emotional conflicts slowly revealed, here the grand heist the protagonist Roberta (Bert) has carefully planned while incarcerated since her diagnosis is a means to explore an exploration of companionship, deceit, and affection in all its forms.

Bert is placed under the supervision of Sam (Whittaker), who lives nearby in the Andalucían hills. Guilt stopped her from seeing Bert during her sentence, but she remained nearby and worked no cons without her – “Rather insensitive with you in prison for a job I messed up.” And for her new, if brief, life on the outside, she has bought her plenty of new underwear, because there are many ways for women companions to show repentance and a classic example is the acquisition of “a big lady-bra” following ten years of uncomfortable institutional clothing.

Sam aims to continue maintaining her peaceful existence and care for Bert until her passing. Bert possesses different plans. And if your most impulsive companion devises alternative schemes – well, you often find yourself going along. Their old dynamic slowly resurfaces and her strategies are already in motion by the time she reveals the complete plan for the robbery. The series experiments with chronology – to good rather than eye-rolling effect – to present key scenes initially and then the explanations. So we watch the pair stealing gems and timepieces off wealthy guests’ wrists at a memorial service – and bagging a golden crown of thorns because why wouldn’t you if you could? – before ripping off their wigs and turning their mourning clothes inside out to transform into vibrant outfits as they stride out and down the church steps, awash with adrenaline and loot.

They need the assets to fund the plan. This involves recruiting a forger (with, unknown to the pair, a betting addiction that is due to attract unneeded scrutiny) in the guise of magician’s assistant Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), who possesses the necessary skills to assist in swapping the intended artwork (a famous surrealist piece at a major museum). Additionally, they recruit feminist art collector Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who specialises in works by male artists exploiting women. She is as ruthless as any of the gangsters the forger and their funeral robbery are attracting, including – most dangerously – their former leader Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a modern-day Fagin who had them running scams for her since their youth. She did not take well to the pair’s assertion of themselves as independent conwomen so unresolved issues remain there.

Plot twists are layered between deepening revelations about the duo’s past, so you get all the satisfactions of a sophisticated heist tale – carried out with immense energy and admirable willingness to overlook obvious implausibilities – plus a mesmerisingly intricate portrait of a friendship that is possibly as toxic as her illness but equally difficult to eradicate. Jones gives perhaps her finest and multifaceted portrayal yet, as the damaged, resentful Bert with her lifetime pursuit of excitement to divert attention from her internal anguish that is unrelated to her medical condition. Whittaker supports her, doing brilliant work in a slightly less interesting part, and alongside the writers they craft a fantastically stylish, deeply moving and highly insightful piece of entertainment that is feminist to its bones without preaching and an absolute success. Eagerly awaiting future installments.