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What could you respond if that wildest companion from your teenage years reappeared? Imagine if you were battling a terminal illness and felt completely unburdened? What if you felt guilty for getting your friend imprisoned 10 years ago? Suppose you were the one she landed in the clink and your release was granted to die of cancer in her custody? What if you had been a nearly unbeatable pair of con artists who still had a stash of disguises left over from your glory days and a longing to feel some excitement again?

These questions and beyond form the core of Frauds, a new drama featuring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, presents to viewers on a exhilarating, intense six-part ride that follows two female fraudsters 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 the psychodramas slowly revealed, here the grand heist the protagonist Roberta (Bert) has meticulously arranged while incarcerated after learning her prognosis 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 resides close by in the Andalucían hills. Remorse prevented her from seeing Bert during her sentence, but she remained nearby and avoided scams without her – “Rather insensitive with you in prison for a job I botched.” And to prepare for Bert’s, if brief, freedom, she has bought her plenty of new underwear, because various methods exist for women companions to offer contrition and one is the purchase of “a big lady-bra” after a decade of uncomfortable institutional clothing.

Sam aims to continue maintaining her peaceful existence and look after Bert till the end. Bert has other ideas. And when your daftest friend devises alternative schemes – well, you often find yourself going along. Their old dynamic slowly resurfaces and her strategies are already in motion by the time she reveals the complete plan for the robbery. The series plays around with the timeline – to good rather than eye-rolling effect – to give us the set-pieces first and then the explanations. So we watch the pair slipping jewellery and watches off wealthy guests’ wrists at a funeral – and acquiring a gilded religious artifact because why wouldn’t 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 church steps, awash with adrenaline and assets.

They need the assets to fund the plan. This entails hiring a document expert (with, unknown to the pair, a gambling problem that is likely to draw unwanted attention) 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). They also enlist feminist art collector Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who focuses on works by male artists exploiting women. She is equally merciless as any of the gangsters their accomplice and the funeral theft are attracting, including – most dangerously – their former leader Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a contemporary crime lord who had them running scams for her since their youth. She reacted poorly to the pair’s assertion of themselves as independent conwomen so unresolved issues remain in that area.

Plot twists are layered between deepening revelations about the duo’s past, so you get all the satisfactions of a Thomas Crown Affair-ish caper – carried out with immense energy and admirable willingness to skate over rampant absurdities – alongside a captivatingly detailed portrait of a bond that is potentially as harmful as her illness but just as impossible to uproot. Jones delivers arguably her best and multifaceted portrayal yet, as the wounded, bitter Bert with her endless quest for thrills to divert attention from the gnawing pain within that is unrelated to her medical condition. Whittaker supports her, delivering excellent acting in a slightly less interesting part, and together with the writers they craft a fantastically stylish, emotionally rich and highly insightful work of art that is feminist to its bones without preaching and in every way a triumph. More again, soon, please.