Frauds Review: Suranne Jones Presents An Exceptional Acting in This Triumphant Heist Drama

How could you respond if that wildest friend from your teenage years got back in touch? What if you were battling a terminal illness and had nothing to lose? What if you felt guilty for getting your friend imprisoned a decade back? 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 con artists who retained a stash of disguises left over from your glory days and a longing to feel some excitement again?

All this and more are the questions that Frauds, an original series featuring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, flings at us on a wild, thrilling season-long journey that traces two female fraudsters bent on executing a final scheme. Similar to a recent project, Jones co-created this with her collaborator, and it retains similar qualities. Much like the mystery-thriller formula served as a backdrop to emotional conflicts slowly revealed, here the grand heist the protagonist Roberta (Bert) has meticulously arranged in prison after learning her prognosis is the vehicle for an exploration of companionship, deceit, and affection in all its forms.

Bert is released into the care of Sam (Whittaker), who lives nearby in the Spanish countryside. Remorse prevented her from ever visiting Bert, 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, freedom, she has bought her plenty of new underwear, because there are many ways for women companions to show repentance and one is the purchase of “a big lady-bra” following ten years of uncomfortable institutional clothing.

Sam aims to continue maintaining her peaceful existence and look after Bert till the end. Bert has other ideas. And if your most impulsive companion devises alternative schemes – 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 robbery. This show plays around with the timeline – 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 funeral – and acquiring a gilded religious artifact because what’s to stop you if you could? – before removing their hairpieces and turning their mourning clothes inside out to become colourful suits 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 recruiting a forger (with, unknown to the pair, a gambling problem that is likely to draw unwanted attention) in the guise of magician’s assistant Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), who has the technical know-how to assist in swapping the target painting (a famous surrealist piece at a major museum). They also enlist feminist art collector Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who focuses on works by artists depicting female subjects. She is as ruthless as any of the gangsters their accomplice and the funeral theft are attracting, including – most dangerously – their former leader Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a contemporary crime lord who employed them in frauds for her since their youth. She did not take well to their declaration of independence as self-reliant tricksters so there’s ground to make up there.

Plot twists are layered between progressively uncovered truths about the duo’s past, 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 captivatingly detailed portrait of a bond that is potentially as harmful as Bert’s cancer but equally difficult to eradicate. Jones delivers arguably her best and most complex performance 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 stands with her, delivering excellent acting in a somewhat less flashy role, and alongside the creative team they create a incredibly chic, deeply moving and highly insightful piece of entertainment that is feminist to its bones without preaching and an absolute success. Eagerly awaiting future installments.