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What could you respond if that wildest friend from your youth got back in touch? What if you were battling a terminal illness and had nothing to lose? What if you were plagued by remorse for landing your friend in the clink 10 years ago? Suppose you were the one she got sent to prison 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 still had a collection of costumes left over from your glory days and a deep desire for one last thrill?

All this and more are the questions that Frauds, a new drama featuring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, flings at us on a exhilarating, intense six-part ride that traces two female fraudsters determined to pulling off one last job. Similar to an earlier work, Jones co-created this with a writing partner, and it retains similar qualities. Much like the mystery-thriller formula served as a backdrop to the psychodramas gradually unveiled, 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 placed under the supervision of Sam (Whittaker), who resides close by in the Andalucían hills. Guilt stopped 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 botched.” And to prepare for Bert’s, albeit short, freedom, she has bought her plenty of new underwear, because there are many ways for women companions to offer contrition and a classic example is the acquisition of “a big lady-bra” following ten years of uncomfortable institutional clothing.

Sam wants to carry on 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, you often find yourself going along. Their old dynamic gradually reasserts itself and her strategies are already in motion by the time she lays out the full blueprint for the heist. The series experiments with chronology – to good rather than eye-rolling effect – to give us the set-pieces first and then the explanations. So we observe the duo stealing gems and timepieces off wealthy guests’ wrists at a memorial service – 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 transform into vibrant outfits as they stride out and down the chapel stairs, awash with adrenaline and loot.

They require the stolen goods to finance the operation. This involves hiring a document expert (with, unknown to the pair, a betting addiction that is likely to draw unneeded scrutiny) in the form 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 major museum). Additionally, they recruit art enthusiast Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who focuses on works by artists depicting female subjects. She is equally merciless as any of the gangsters their accomplice and the funeral theft are drawing towards them, including – most perilously of all – their old boss Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a modern-day Fagin who had them running scams 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 in that area.

Plot twists are layered between deepening revelations about the duo’s past, so you get all the satisfactions of a sophisticated heist tale – executed with no shortage of brio and admirable willingness to skate over rampant absurdities – plus a captivatingly detailed portrait of a bond that is possibly as toxic as Bert’s cancer but just as impossible to uproot. Jones gives perhaps her finest and most complex performance yet, as the wounded, bitter Bert with her endless quest for thrills to divert attention from her internal anguish that has nothing to do with her medical condition. Whittaker stands with her, delivering excellent acting in a somewhat less flashy role, and alongside the creative team they craft a fantastically stylish, emotionally rich and profoundly intelligent work of art that is inherently empowering without preaching and an absolute success. Eagerly awaiting future installments.