Review by Joan – Sophie Turner sparkles in this wild true story of a rags-to-riches jewel thief | Television and radio

J.o Hannington’s story makes you wonder what you did with your time. How does someone overcome a loveless childhood, an abusive marriage, and precarious single parenthood to become a successful jewel thief and then a power player in the criminal underworld known as the Godmother? It’s all I can do to manage a shower three times a week.

Hannington told her story in her 2002 autobiography, I Am What I Am (since reissued as Joan), which was turned into this six-part drama. At heart, the adaptation is a crime adventure, but with enough backstory from the protagonist — including Joan’s need to provide for her daughter, Kelly (Mia Millichamp-Long) — to keep you emotionally invested. But the stolen jewelry is beautiful. Joan’s adventures begin in the 1980s, when greed was good and we knew how to display it.

The program opens with Joan (Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner, proving herself with a role in which she can get to grips with a number of accents) sitting at her dressing table in a sumptuous hotel room. Her back is covered in scars that speak of childhood abuse, but she’s busy dressing in designer clothes, adorning herself with flashing gems, and slipping rolls of cash into her vanity case, before rocking a red wig and more furs than Sansa Stark. confidence oozes from every pore. We then look back over four months. It’s obvious that our Joan has come a long way in a short time.

In rapid succession – the mark of a good caper – we see Joan fleeing her abusive boyfriend, Gary; the thugs who threaten to kill her and her daughter in revenge for her latest miscalculation; and the police, who want her to go after many of them. She gives Kelly custody of the child, with the understanding that she will get her back when she finds a new home and job. So Joan throws herself at the mercy of her sister, Nancy (Kirsty J Curtis). Nancy reluctantly agrees to let her stay on the couch for a few nights and give her a job in her hair salon, with one caveat: “No fucking chaos.” »

Chaos ensues and Joan soon finds herself in another job, this time at a jeweler owned by a guy named Bernard (Alex Blake, who makes you shiver every time he slips into a scene). Her not-so-new approach to after-hours inventory has her fleeing for safety again, but not before swallowing a handful of loose diamonds on the way out. I sometimes wonder, in my idle moments, how many stories there would be to tell if men knew how to behave and could keep their hands and fists to themselves.

One careful sifting later – after a chance encounter in a pub with a shady antiques dealer and ex-convict called Boisie (Frank Dillane) – and we’re off. Boisie’s “one job” becomes much more (perhaps because of Joan’s insistence on fair compensation). Her nerve and intelligence – as well as the willingness of men and brands to underestimate her – allow her to have a lucrative career and gradually earn the respect that has always been denied her by respectable society.

It’s great fun, contrasting the genuine heartbreak and fears behind Joan’s courage with the glorious adrenaline rushes and addictive glamor of the heists and Spanish smuggling escapades. Turner – at least in the two episodes available for review – never lets us lose sight of the criminal’s anxious mother, nor the desperation that drives her.

The cracks begin to show at the end of the second episode, when Joan declares that she and Boisie will do everything possible – in love and in work – to earn the money that would “prove themselves socially.” If that’s bravado, fine. If it’s a straight line, it doesn’t match the brash but ultimately astute woman of the previous two hours. I’d also like to know if a wise woman in the 80s would use social services as an emergency daycare without suspecting that things would turn out exactly as they did for Kelly, but that’s just a minor quibble.

The serviceable script doesn’t demand too much from the strong actors (including Gershwyn Eustache Jr as Albie, Boisie’s warmly menacing best friend and fence), but they produce as solid entertainment as you could ask for, providing a bit of escape and soup of suspense. Enough to spend one or six autumn evenings.