How could you respond if your most reckless companion from your youth got back in touch? Imagine if you were dying of cancer and felt completely unburdened? What if you felt guilty for getting your friend imprisoned 10 years ago? If you were the one she got sent to prison and your release was granted to die of cancer in her custody? What if you had been a nearly unbeatable pair of scam artists who still had a collection of costumes from your prime and a deep desire for one last thrill?
These questions and beyond are the questions that Frauds, a new drama starring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, presents to viewers on a wild, thrilling season-long journey that follows two female fraudsters bent on executing a final scheme. Echoing a recent project, Jones developed this series with a writing partner, and it retains similar qualities. Just as the mystery-thriller formula was used as background to emotional conflicts slowly revealed, here the grand heist Jones’ character Roberta (Bert) has meticulously arranged while incarcerated since her diagnosis is the vehicle for a deep dive into companionship, deceit, and affection in all its forms.
Bert is released into the care of Sam (Whittaker), who resides close by in the Spanish countryside. Remorse prevented 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 botched.” And for her new, albeit short, life on the outside, she has bought her plenty of new underwear, because various methods exist for female friends to show repentance and a classic example is the purchase of “a big lady-bra” after a decade of underwire-free prison-issue rubbish.
Sam wants to carry on maintaining her peaceful existence and care for Bert until her passing. Bert possesses different plans. And when your daftest friend has other ideas – well, you often find yourself going along. Their old dynamic gradually reasserts itself and her strategies are already in motion by the time she lays out the full blueprint for the heist. The series plays around with the timeline – producing engagement rather than confusion – to give us the set-pieces first and then the explanations. So we observe the duo slipping jewellery and watches 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 reversing their funeral attire to transform into vibrant outfits as they stride out and down the church steps, filled with excitement and loot.
They require the stolen goods to fund the plan. This entails hiring a document expert (with, unbeknown to them, a betting addiction that is due to attract unneeded scrutiny) in the form of illusionist’s aide Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), who has the technical know-how to assist in swapping the target painting (a renowned Dali painting at a major museum). Additionally, they recruit art enthusiast Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who specialises in works by artists depicting female subjects. She is as ruthless as all the criminals the forger and their funeral robbery are drawing towards them, including – most perilously of all – their old boss Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a modern-day Fagin who employed them in frauds for her since their youth. She reacted poorly to their declaration of independence as self-reliant tricksters so there’s ground to make up there.
Plot twists are layered between deepening revelations about Bert and Sam’s history, so you get all the satisfactions of a Thomas Crown Affair-ish caper – carried out with immense energy and admirable willingness to skate over rampant absurdities – plus a mesmerisingly intricate portrait of a bond that is potentially as harmful as Bert’s cancer but equally difficult to eradicate. Jones gives perhaps her finest and multifaceted portrayal yet, as the wounded, bitter Bert with her endless quest for thrills to distract from her internal anguish that has nothing to do with metastasising cells. Whittaker stands with her, doing brilliant work in a slightly less interesting part, and alongside the creative team they craft a incredibly chic, deeply moving and highly insightful work of art that is feminist to its bones without preaching and an absolute success. More again, soon, please.
