🔗 Share this article

How would you respond if that wildest companion from your youth reappeared? Imagine if you were battling a terminal illness and felt completely unburdened? Consider if you felt guilty for landing your friend in the clink 10 years ago? Suppose you were the one she landed in the clink and your release was granted to succumb to illness in her care? If you used to be a almost unstoppable pair of scam artists who retained a stash of disguises left over from your glory days and a deep desire for one last thrill?

All this and more form the core of Frauds, a new drama starring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, presents to viewers on a wild, thrilling six-part ride that follows two female fraudsters determined to pulling off one last job. Echoing a recent project, Jones co-created this with her collaborator, and it has all the same strengths. Just as a suspense-driven structure was used as background to the psychodramas slowly revealed, here the elaborate theft Jones’ character Roberta (Bert) has meticulously arranged in prison since her diagnosis is a means to explore a deep dive into companionship, deceit, and affection in every variation.

Bert is released into the care of Sam (Whittaker), who lives nearby in the Spanish countryside. Guilt stopped her from seeing Bert during her sentence, but she has stayed close and worked no cons without her – “Bit crass with you in prison for a job I botched.” And to prepare for Bert’s, albeit short, life on the outside, she has purchased numerous undergarments, because various methods exist for female friends to offer contrition and a classic example is the purchase of “a big lady-bra” after a decade of uncomfortable institutional clothing.

Sam aims to continue leading her quiet life and look after Bert till the end. Bert has other ideas. And if your most impulsive companion has other ideas – well, those tend to be the ones you follow. Their former relationship slowly resurfaces and her strategies are underway by the time she lays out the full blueprint for the heist. The series plays around with the timeline – to good rather than eye-rolling effect – to give us the set-pieces first and then the explanations. So we watch the pair stealing gems and timepieces off wealthy guests’ wrists at a funeral – and bagging a golden crown of thorns because what’s to stop you if you could? – before ripping off their wigs and turning their mourning clothes inside out to transform into vibrant outfits as they walk confidently down the church steps, awash with adrenaline and assets.

They need the assets to fund the plan. This involves hiring a document expert (with, unknown to the pair, a gambling problem that is due to attract unneeded scrutiny) in the guise of magician’s assistant Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), who has the technical know-how to help them remove and replace the target painting (a renowned Dali painting at a prominent gallery). They also enlist art enthusiast Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who focuses on works by artists depicting female subjects. She is equally merciless as all the criminals their accomplice and the funeral theft are drawing towards them, 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 reacted poorly to their declaration of independence as self-reliant tricksters so there’s ground to make up in that area.

Plot twists are interspersed with progressively uncovered truths about the duo’s past, so you experience the full enjoyment of a Thomas Crown Affair-ish caper – executed with no shortage of brio and praiseworthy readiness to overlook obvious implausibilities – alongside a captivatingly detailed portrait of a bond that is possibly as toxic as Bert’s cancer but equally difficult to eradicate. Jones gives perhaps her finest and most complex performance yet, as the damaged, resentful Bert with her endless quest for thrills to divert attention from her internal anguish that is unrelated to her medical condition. Whittaker stands with her, doing brilliant work in a slightly less interesting part, and together with the creative team they create a incredibly chic, deeply moving and highly insightful piece of entertainment that is feminist to its bones devoid of lecturing and in every way a triumph. Eagerly awaiting future installments.