Frauds Review: Suranne Jones Presents An Exceptional Performance in This Masterful Con Artist Series

What could you do if your most reckless friend from your youth reappeared? What if you were dying of cancer and felt completely unburdened? Consider if you felt guilty for landing your friend in the clink a decade back? If you were the one she landed in the clink and your release was granted to die of cancer in her care? What if you had been 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, an original series featuring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, flings at us on a exhilarating, intense six-part ride that traces two conwomen determined to executing a final scheme. Similar to a recent project, Jones developed this series with a writing partner, and it retains similar qualities. Much like a suspense-driven structure served as a backdrop to emotional conflicts slowly revealed, here the elaborate theft Jones’ character Roberta (Bert) has carefully planned while incarcerated since her diagnosis is a means to explore a deep dive into friendship, betrayal and love in all its forms.

Bert is released into the care of Sam (Whittaker), who lives nearby in the Andalucían hills. Remorse prevented her from seeing Bert during her sentence, but she remained nearby and avoided scams without her – “Bit crass with you in prison for a job I messed up.” And to prepare for Bert’s, if brief, life on the outside, she has bought her plenty of new underwear, because there are many ways for female friends to offer contrition and one is the acquisition of “a big lady-bra” following ten years of underwire-free prison-issue rubbish.

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 has other ideas – well, those tend to be the ones you follow. Their old dynamic gradually reasserts itself and her strategies are underway by the time she lays out the full blueprint for the heist. The series experiments with chronology – producing engagement rather than confusion – to present key scenes initially and then the rationale. So we watch the pair slipping jewellery and watches from affluent attendees at a memorial service – and acquiring a gilded religious artifact because why wouldn’t you if you could? – before ripping off their wigs and turning their mourning clothes inside out to become colourful suits as they walk confidently down the chapel stairs, filled with excitement 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 likely to draw unwanted attention) in the form of magician’s assistant Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), who possesses the necessary skills to help them remove and replace the target painting (a renowned Dali painting at a prominent gallery). Additionally, they recruit 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 employed them in frauds for her since their youth. She reacted poorly to the pair’s assertion of themselves as independent conwomen so there’s ground to make up in that area.

Unexpected developments are layered between deepening revelations about the duo’s past, so you experience the full enjoyment of a sophisticated heist tale – executed with no shortage of brio and praiseworthy readiness to skate over rampant absurdities – plus a mesmerisingly intricate portrait of a bond that is potentially as harmful as her illness but just as impossible to uproot. Jones gives perhaps her finest and most complex performance yet, as the damaged, resentful Bert with her endless quest for thrills to distract from the gnawing pain within that has nothing to do with her medical condition. Whittaker stands with her, delivering excellent acting in a slightly less interesting part, and alongside the writers they create a incredibly chic, deeply moving and highly insightful piece of entertainment that is inherently empowering devoid of lecturing and an absolute success. Eagerly awaiting future installments.