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What would you respond if that wildest friend from your youth reappeared? What if you were battling a terminal illness and had nothing to lose? What if you felt guilty for getting your friend imprisoned a decade back? Suppose you were the one she got sent to prison and you were only being released to succumb to illness in her care? What if you had been a nearly unbeatable pair of scam artists who still had a collection of costumes from your prime and a longing to feel some excitement again?

These questions and beyond form the core of Frauds, an original series featuring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, presents to viewers on a wild, thrilling season-long journey that traces two female fraudsters bent on pulling off one last job. Similar to an earlier work, 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 since her diagnosis is a means to explore an exploration of friendship, betrayal and love in all its forms.

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 has stayed close and worked no cons without her – “Bit crass with you in prison for a job I botched.” And for her new, if brief, freedom, she has bought her plenty of new underwear, because there are many ways for women companions to show repentance and a classic example is the acquisition of “a big lady-bra” after a decade of underwire-free prison-issue rubbish.

Sam aims to continue maintaining her peaceful existence and look after Bert till the end. Bert has other ideas. And when your daftest friend has other ideas – well, you often find yourself going along. Their old dynamic slowly resurfaces and her strategies are underway by the time she reveals the complete plan for the robbery. This show 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 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 assets.

They require the stolen goods to finance the operation. This entails recruiting a forger (with, unbeknown to them, a gambling problem that is due to attract unneeded scrutiny) in the form of magician’s assistant Jackie (Elizabeth Berrington), who has the technical know-how to help them remove and replace the intended artwork (a renowned Dali painting at a prominent gallery). They also enlist feminist art collector Celine (Kate Fleetwood), who focuses on works by male artists exploiting women. She is as ruthless as all the criminals their accomplice and the funeral theft are attracting, including – most perilously of all – their former leader Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a modern-day Fagin who employed them in frauds for her since their youth. She reacted poorly to the pair’s assertion of themselves as independent conwomen so unresolved issues remain there.

Unexpected developments are layered between deepening revelations about Bert and Sam’s history, so you get all the satisfactions of a sophisticated heist tale – carried out with immense energy and praiseworthy readiness to overlook obvious implausibilities – plus a captivatingly detailed portrait of a friendship that is potentially as harmful as her illness but equally difficult to eradicate. Jones gives perhaps her finest and multifaceted portrayal yet, as the wounded, bitter Bert with her lifetime pursuit of excitement to divert attention from the gnawing pain within that is unrelated to metastasising cells. Whittaker supports her, doing brilliant work in a slightly less interesting part, and alongside the creative team they craft a incredibly chic, deeply moving and profoundly intelligent piece of entertainment that is inherently empowering without preaching and an absolute success. More again, soon, please.