I know diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but still, I think I would baulk at the idea of swallowing half a dozen decent-sized sparklers, to be retrieved later via a process involving vodka, olive oil and (oh, don’t ask!) a cut-glass rose bowl. (OK, you asked: basically, it does for a chamber pot.) Surely even a semi-professional lady thief would find it easier and more appealing simply to slip said stones into the pocket of her Dorothy Perkins jacket before calmly leaving the jewellery shop, whose owner, Bernard, has just affronted her by indulging in some light frottage during a stock take. But what do I know? The only thing I have ever stolen is a heart.
This, though, is my only reservation (so far) about Joan, a six-part drama based on the real-life adventures of Joan Hannington, the upmarket jewellery thief extraordinaire. If it’s not quite as good as the BBC’s outstanding The Gold, about the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery, it’s still highly pleasurable. Precision casting, tight and understated writing by Anna Symon and wraparound peroxide: what’s not to like? After two episodes, I was so beguiled I added Julio Iglesias’s 1981 version of the easy-listening classic “Begin the Beguine” to my Spotify playlist – and without any embarrassment. How great to see a show that’s both unexpectedly compelling and replete with egg yolk-coloured Ford Capris and lopsided Human League bobs.
It’s 1985, and on the Kent coast, Joan (Sophie Turner) lives in a flat above a Chinese takeaway with a thug called Gary and their small daughter, Kelly. Gary is undisguised bad news, and sure enough, his lavish birthday present to Joan – a fur coat that makes her look like a yeti – is swiftly followed first by his doing a runner, and then by the arrival of gangsters to pistol-whip her (Gary owes them money). Tough as she is, Joan is frightened: so much so that she asks social services to take Kelly into care until she can get herself sorted. Money will be earned in London, where her sister has a hair salon, and she can spend her days rubbing Country Born gel through the perms of ridiculous middle-aged men (“It’s come out nice, Dave!”).
But Joan is not a settler. Her exasperated sister tells her to find a job she really enjoys, a quest that takes her to the establishment of the aforementioned Bernard Jones, where she works briefly as a saleswoman – one so trusted by the oleaginous proprietor she’s allowed to model the “Premier Collection”, items from which resemble something Hazell Dean might have worn on Top of the Pops. Only then Bernard pounces – listen to the nylon crackle! – and off she heads with her haul. A lightbulb moment. So here’s her future career. It will be fun, it will be lucrative, and it will be… criminal. She’ll be able to get Kelly back and have four bedrooms and a garden. So far, so good. The series owes its real spark, however, less to its heroine’s larceny than to her relationship with Boisie, an antique dealer she meets in a pub, whose sensibilities are similar to her own.
I knew without being told that Frank Dillane, who plays Boisie, must be the son of Stephen Dillane (last seen in Sherwood): the voices are the same. Like his father, he has a quietness that can mesmerise, stealthy and sexy even in a vest. But how good is his chemistry with Turner? Answer: very. The expression on his face when he takes her to a hotel and she’s baffled by a tiny sewing kit! (“Who does sewing in their holidays?”) He looks like a mongoose that’s about to swallow an egg.
As for Turner, I could watch her forever. In part, it’s her face: the cheekbones that make you think of bone-handled knives. Whether from Etam or Harrods, the clobber suits her. And boy, she can act. Hannington was a notorious shape-shifter – a brilliant impersonator – and Turner has a way with voices, layering poshness on top of light cockney just thinly enough for the audience to feel nervous, jeopardy trailing her character like Dior Poison.
She looks to me like she’s having the time of her life, and who can blame her? What a jewel of a role: a diamond as big as the Ritz.
Joan
ITV1
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