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What would you respond if that wildest companion from your teenage years got back in touch? Imagine if you were dying of cancer and felt completely unburdened? Consider if you felt guilty for getting your friend imprisoned 10 years ago? Suppose you were the one she landed in the clink and you were only being released to succumb to illness in her care? What if you had been a nearly unbeatable 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, a new drama starring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, presents to viewers on a wild, thrilling season-long journey that traces two conwomen determined to pulling off one last job. Similar to a recent project, Jones developed this series with a writing partner, and it has all the same strengths. Just as the mystery-thriller formula was used as background to the psychodramas slowly revealed, here the grand heist the protagonist Roberta (Bert) has carefully planned while incarcerated since her diagnosis is the vehicle for a deep dive into friendship, betrayal and love in every variation.

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 offer contrition and one is the acquisition of “a big lady-bra” following ten years of uncomfortable institutional clothing.

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 devises alternative schemes – well, those tend to be the ones you follow. Their former relationship gradually reasserts itself and her strategies are already in motion by the time she reveals the complete plan for the robbery. This show plays around with the timeline – producing engagement rather than confusion – to present key scenes initially and then the rationale. So we watch the pair slipping jewellery and watches off wealthy guests’ wrists at a memorial service – and bagging a golden crown of thorns because why wouldn’t you if you could? – before removing their hairpieces and reversing their funeral attire to transform into vibrant outfits as they walk confidently down the church steps, awash with adrenaline and loot.

They require the stolen goods to fund the plan. This involves hiring a document expert (with, unbeknown to them, a betting addiction that is due to attract unneeded scrutiny) in the guise of magician’s assistant Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), who possesses the necessary skills to assist in swapping the intended artwork (a famous surrealist piece at a prominent gallery). Additionally, they recruit feminist art collector Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who specialises in works by male artists exploiting women. She is as ruthless as any of the gangsters their accomplice and the funeral theft are drawing towards them, including – most perilously of all – their former leader Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a modern-day Fagin who employed them in frauds for her from their teens. She reacted poorly to their declaration of independence as self-reliant tricksters so there’s ground to make up there.

Plot twists are interspersed with progressively uncovered truths about the duo’s past, so you experience the full enjoyment of a sophisticated heist tale – carried out with immense energy and admirable willingness to skate over rampant absurdities – plus a captivatingly detailed portrait of a bond that is possibly as toxic as her illness but just as impossible to uproot. Jones gives perhaps her finest and multifaceted portrayal yet, as the wounded, bitter Bert with her lifetime pursuit of excitement 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 creative team they craft a fantastically stylish, emotionally rich and highly insightful work of art that is feminist to its bones devoid of lecturing and in every way a triumph. Eagerly awaiting future installments.