Actresses Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker are to play skilled con artists in an ITV heist drama exploring “toxic female friendship”.
Gentleman Jack star Jones, 46, has co-created Frauds alongside Hullraisers co-writer Anne-Marie O’Connor, and stars as Bert, who has left a Spanish prison cell on compassionate grounds after a cancer diagnosis.
On the pretext of one final multimillion-pound art heist, Bert, who has spent the last decade locked up and is in the final weeks of her life, attempts to lure grifting partner Sam (Whittaker) out of retirement.
Jones said: “Working on Frauds with Anne-Marie and (production company) Monumental for the last two years has been a wild ride.
“We took the idea of toxic female friendship and turned it on its head to give the heist genre an emotional heartbeat.
“I have always wanted to work with Jodie, and now I am. I hope you love Bert and Sam and all they get up to as much as we do.”
The six-part series recently began filming in Spain, which is where Sam had been content to live a life of anonymity awaiting Bert’s release from a maximum-security prison.
O’Connor said: “Suranne and I wanted to take a look at the importance and fierceness of female friendship and to do it using the propulsive heist genre.
“I am thrilled to be working with Monumental again, and having Jodie joining us alongside Suranne is a dream.”
O’Connor and Jones previously collaborated on Maryland, which aired on ITV1 and ITVX.
Helen Ziegler, ITV senior drama commissioning editor, said: “Suranne and Jodie are two incredible actors and it’ll be thrilling to see what they bring to the central characters.”
Production company Monumental Television is producing Frauds in association with ITV Studios.
Frauds is a co-production with TeamAkers, the production company founded by Jones and writer/producer Laurence Akers.
O’Connor is also executive producing, along with Jones on behalf of TeamAkers.
The series will air on ITV and STV and be available for streaming on ITVX and STV Player.
