The Cutprice Guignol

Last month, I wrote a little about The Guest, and how much of a soft spot I have for terrifically toxic girl-on-girl television. And I’m not sure what Unhealthy Pseudo-Sapphic Gods happened to be paying attention to that article, but someone must have been, because they came down from on high to gift me with Frauds.

Not that it was going to be much of a hard sell for me anyway, given that it’s stacked with such an insanely brilliant cast. Jodie Whittaker (my one, my only, my beloved Doctor) stars as Sam, a one-time con, who reconnects with her old partner (not like that, though, to be quite frank, it should have been) Bert (Suranne Jones) after she is released from prison early due to illness. But Bert has plans other than reclining in the Andalucian hills with a glass of Sangria – no, she wants to carry out one more audacious heist with Sam at her side, along with a few of their previous connections, including Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington, scene-stealer in the brilliant Henpocalypse) and Miss Take (Talisa Garcia).

And let me say this, before anything else – Frauds is probably the most fun I’ve had watching anything all year. I love a good old-fashioned heist story, and, if that’s all you’re coming here for, you’re going to get it. The world this story takes place in – from the criminal underworld of a children’s soft play arena to the absurd glamour of Miss Take’s drag bingo – is perfectly balanced between glitzy, cheap camp of a good British holiday destination and the genuine majesty of Spanish architecture and history. And that balance is encapsulated in the focal point of the heist, Salvador Dali’s The Great Masturbator, as much crude as it is high art – and the centrepiece of more wanking jokes that you can shake a (proverbial) stick at. Watching Bert, Sam, and company swagger their way through any number of minor criminal escapades is truly something that could fill seven twenty-four episode seasons at least, and there’s a wit and a lightness of touch that lets writer and co-creator Anne Marie O’Connor get away with some of the sillier sides of their illegal antics with ease.

But what really makes Frauds for me is the complex relationship it explores between Bert and Sam, two women who have built their lives, and, by extension, their friendship on mistruths and distrust. Whittaker and Jones are fantastic actors in their own right, but the depth they bring to these women is up there with the best work of their respective careers. There’s an uneasiness about virtually every single one of their interactions, the constant sense that one or both of them is trying to get away with something before the other has time to catch up with it – but it’s punched through with these moments of genuine, unimpinged sincerity and love for one another that is tangled up in the lies in this endlessly compelling mess that underpins the whole story. The chemistry that these two bring to it, and the skill they have in uncovering the messy truth beneath the fronts that both women have put on, is a genuine masterclass in how to make your leading double-act hit the way it’s supposed to.

It’s hard to imagine that anything on TV will top Frauds for pure entertainment value, and that alone would have been enough to justify its existence. But a seriously compelling relationship between the two leads elevates it into downright brilliance, and I, for one, am in for the very-clearly-teased next season. I’d love to hear what you think about it in the comments below, though, fair warning, if you’ve got anything bad to say, I’m going to come to your house and pinch your Great Masturbator. Wanking pun, this time, fully intended.

(header image via Elle)