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

Joan Hannington's story will make you wonder what the hell you were doing with your time. How does someone overcome a loveless childhood, an abusive marriage and a stingy single parent to become a successful jewelry thief and then a powerful player in the criminal underworld known as “The Godmother”? I only manage to shower three times a week.

Hannington told her story in her 2002 autobiography I Am What I Am (since republished as Joan), which was adapted into this six-part drama. At heart, the adaptation is a crime story, but it sketches out enough background information about the protagonist – including Joan's need to provide for her daughter Kelly (Mia Millichamp-Long) – to keep you emotionally engaged. However, the stolen jewelry is beautiful. Joan's adventures begin in the 1980s, when greed was good and we knew how to flaunt it.

The program begins with Joan (Sophie Turner from “Game of Thrones,” proving herself with a role she can empathize with and who adds some accents) sitting at her dressing table in an opulent hotel room. Her back is covered in scars from child abuse, but she's busy dressing in designer clothes, adorning herself with sparkling gems, and stuffing rolls of cash into her vanity case before running off with a red wig and more fur than Sansa Stark. Confidence oozes from every pore. We then look back four months. It's obvious that our Joan has come a long way in a short period of time.

In quick succession – the hallmark of a good adventure – we see Joan fleeing her violent boyfriend Gary; the thugs who threaten to kill her and her daughter in revenge for his latest misjudgment; and the police who want her sitting around on their property. She places Kelly in care to protect the child, assuming that she will get him back when she finds a new home and a new job. Then Joan puts 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 at her hair salon, with the caveat: “None of your damn mess.”

Chaos ensues, and Joan soon has another job, this time at a jeweler owned by a creep named Bernard (Alex Blake, who makes you cringe every time he pops into a scene). His not-so-novel approach to after-hours inventory causes her to flee again to safety, but not before swallowing a handful of loose diamonds on the way out. Sometimes in idle moments I wonder 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 perusal later – after a chance encounter in a pub with a shady antiques dealer and former prison guard named Boisie (Frank Dillane) – and we're off. “Just a job” turns into much, much more for Boisie (perhaps because Joan insists on getting a fair share). Her chutzpah and intelligence – and the willingness of men and women to underestimate her – mean she is set for a lucrative career and the gradual attainment of the respect that has always been denied to her by respectable society.

It's great fun to keep the real grief and fears behind Joan's bravery in nice tension with the wonderful adrenaline rushes and addictive glamor of the heists and Spanish smuggling trips. Turner never lets us – at least in the two episodes available for review – lose sight of the criminal's anxious mother, nor the core of desperation that drives her.

At the end of the second episode, cracks begin to appear as Joan declares that with Boisie she will give everything – in love and work – to earn the money that would “prove me in society.” If you're brave, that's okay. If it's a straight line, it doesn't suit the impetuous but ultimately clever woman of the last few hours. I'd also like to know if a smart woman in her 80s would use social services as an emergency crèche without suspecting that things would turn out the same way they did with Kelly, but that's a minor point of contention.

The serviceable script doesn't place too many demands on the strong cast (including Gershwyn Eustache Jr. as Albie, Boisie's warmly menacing best friend and onlooker), but they provide as solid entertainment as one could hope for, and offer a little of it Escapism and a pinch of excitement. It is enough to spend an autumn evening or six.