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What could you do if your most reckless companion from your youth reappeared? Imagine if you were battling a terminal illness and felt completely unburdened? Consider if you felt guilty for getting your friend imprisoned a decade back? Suppose you were the one she landed in the clink and you were only being released to die of cancer in her care? If you used to be a nearly unbeatable pair of scam 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 form the core of Frauds, a new drama featuring Suranne Jones and Jodie Whittaker, flings at us on a wild, thrilling six-part ride that traces two conwomen bent on pulling off one last job. Echoing an earlier work, Jones co-created this with a writing partner, and it has all the same strengths. Much like a suspense-driven structure was used as background to the psychodramas slowly revealed, here the elaborate theft the protagonist Roberta (Bert) has carefully planned in prison after learning her prognosis is the vehicle for an exploration of companionship, deceit, and affection in every variation.

Bert is placed under the supervision of Sam (Whittaker), who lives nearby in the Andalucían hills. Remorse prevented 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, life on the outside, she has purchased numerous undergarments, because various methods exist for women companions to offer contrition and one is the purchase of “a big lady-bra” following ten years of uncomfortable institutional clothing.

Sam aims to continue leading her quiet life 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 gradually reasserts itself and Bert’s plans are already in motion by the time she reveals the complete plan for the heist. This show plays around with the timeline – producing engagement rather than confusion – to give us the set-pieces first and then the explanations. So we watch the pair slipping jewellery and watches from affluent attendees at a funeral – and bagging a golden crown of thorns because what’s to stop you if you could? – before ripping off their wigs and turning their mourning clothes inside out to become colourful suits as they walk confidently down the chapel stairs, filled with excitement and loot.

They require the stolen goods to fund the plan. This entails recruiting a forger (with, unbeknown to them, a betting addiction that is likely to draw 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 target painting (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 any of the gangsters their accomplice and the funeral theft are drawing towards them, including – most dangerously – their former leader Miss Take (Talisa Garcia), a modern-day Fagin who employed them in frauds for her since their youth. She did not take well to the pair’s assertion of themselves as independent conwomen so unresolved issues remain in that area.

Plot twists are interspersed with progressively uncovered truths about Bert and Sam’s history, so you experience the full enjoyment of a sophisticated heist tale – carried out with immense energy and praiseworthy readiness to skate over rampant absurdities – plus a mesmerisingly intricate portrait of a bond that is possibly as toxic as Bert’s cancer 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 distract from her internal anguish that is unrelated to her medical condition. Whittaker stands with her, delivering excellent acting in a slightly less interesting part, and together with the writers they create a fantastically stylish, emotionally rich and profoundly intelligent piece of entertainment that is feminist to its bones without preaching and in every way a triumph. More again, soon, please.