Bad news: the latest project from Suranne Jones doesn’t always feel like the real deal. Implausible details abound in this six-part heist thriller (that she produced through her company, TeamAkers). And there are weak links in the cast. Still, don’t panic, because the blissful moments outweigh the blah ones. Jones herself as Bert – a tough and sexy ex-con, who enjoys playing mind games – is on blistering form. Her co-stars, Jodie Whittaker and Elizabeth Berrington, are compelling. In a typical line of dialogue, Whittaker tells Berrington: “I always said your vagina could light up a room!” What a relief to be able to report that Frauds (taken as a whole) is a shining example of accessible, transgressive TV.
Money has clearly been spent on a story that’s set in Spain and toggles between the southern coast and Madrid. Wide-angle shots of a bullring are stunning. There’s also a lusciously lit church plus two set pieces, in episode six, that are epic in every way.
Ironically, the cinematic visuals trigger a bleak thought. Jones is a beloved stage actor who’s starred in game-changing dramas (Vigil, Doctor Foster, Gentleman Jack and Hostage) as well as a spry TV movie (Christmas Carole). But she’s never been the lead in an actual film. You know, the kind you see at the Odeon or Vue. Like Natalie Portman and Frances McDormand, who she physically resembles, Jones offers a lucky dip of treats. In Frauds, her brown eyes are expertly noirish, yet when you least expect it, she suddenly grins like a kid taking their first bounce on the biggest of trampolines. In a just world, Jones would be a screen legend. Why isn’t there a place for her in cinemas?
Anyhoo, the plot revolves around the forgery of a painting, ie, the art of imitation. In the first episode, writer Anne Marie O’Connor (who collaborated with Jones on knotty siblings drama Maryland) has wicked fun with action-movie cliche – she knows we’re expecting a riff on Thelma and Louise. Bert is picked up from prison by her one-time partner in crime, Sam (Whittaker). Sensible Sam is now trying to go straight, but hot-headed Bert has cancer and, before she dies, wants to do “one last job”. To be precise, she wants to steal and replace a painting from the Reina Sofia Museum: Dali’s Face of the Great Masturbator. We get a good look at this lewd masterpiece – it’s all but rubbed in our faces – which is one of many clues that, for all the familiar signposts, we’re headed somewhere new.
Jones has a massive LGBTQ+ fanbase thanks to Gentleman Jack, Vigil and Charlie Brooker’s cheeky comedy, A Touch of Cloth. Let’s just say, said fanbase will find Frauds intriguing. There’s a transgender character, Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), who owns a drag bingo bar and, when it counts, puts on a magnificent show. There’s also sexual tension between Bert and Sam. Bert flirts, aggressively, with Sam, mockingly referring to her, at one point, as “my husband”. Were they lovers in the past? Will they hook up in the future? And should we be impressed or disturbed by Bert’s machismo? Sam hisses at Bert, “You can’t keep your d*** in your pants!” Both Bert and Sam, by the way, like to mooch around in comfy trousers and flat shoes. Looking for the next Ocean’s 8? You’re in the wrong place.
Whittaker is not quite as well served by the script as Jones (Sam gets plenty of screentime, yet the character lacks definition, which is a shame). But, as you’d expect from the woman who was so pulverisingly beleaguered in Broadchurch, and so endearing as the first female star of Doctor Who, Whittaker makes the most of what she’s given. She’s especially memorable when Bert and Sam reinvent themselves as bawdy Irish nuns and, later, bumbag-toting tourists. In these scenes, she and Jones seem possessed by the blithe spirits of Victoria Wood and Julie Walters in the Eighties sketch show Wood and Walters. Or Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in Ab Fab. The results are surreal and gusset-wettingly funny.
It’s icing on the cake that the crew assembled by Bert and Sam – including two Spaniards (Thais Martin and Javier Taboada) and two northerners (Karan Gill and Berrington) – are diverting in their own right. Gill, for example, ensures nervy Bilal – the Bradford gambler hired to duplicate the Dali – is adorable in a three-dimensional way. Gill may be working on a small canvas, but his brushwork is delicate.
As Jackie Diamond, a fiftysomething magician’s assistant, Berrington is even more impressive. A TV regular, she is part of cult film history thanks to Martin McDonagh’s 2008 black comedy In Bruges. She was the cockney matriarch who took objection to her husband smashing the family phone (Her: “It’s an inanimate f***ing object!”; Him: “You’re an inanimate f***ing object!”). Berrington is very animated in Frauds. Jackie’s sleazy and controlling husband has his eye on a cute whippersnapper (Karise Yansen), who gives Jackie the once-over and says, witheringly: “You’ll be stuck here in 20 years’ time, looking like a 2lb sausage in a 1lb skin.” She’s a childless woman in a series obsessed with mother-daughter relationships, and all but vibrates with uncertainty over her right to take up space. Yet she’s also incredibly bright. She explains to Martin’s character that the “invisibility” of middle-aged women could work to the group’s advantage. As she does so, you may be tempted to squeal with delight.
The feminism in Frauds is down to earth and visceral; it feels timely and genuine. True, Jones and Whittaker aren’t invisible. They’re high-profile celebrities. Yet, at 47 and 43, respectively, they’re edging towards 50 (the age, according to French author Yann Moix, at which women become too old to love). Good on the pair for making this series, which, though not perfect, celebrates sly broads who fly under the radar and proves (for those of us who’d kill to see Jones conquer Hollywood) that you don’t always need a big screen to think big.
