Joan Hannington’s story makes you ask what on earth you have been doing with your time. How does someone manage to overcome a loveless childhood, an abusive marriage and penurious single parenthood to become a successful jewel thief and then an influential 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 tale in her 2002 autobiography, I Am What I Am (since republished as Joan), which has been turned into this six-part drama. At heart, the adaptation is a crime caper, but with enough of the protagonist’s background sketched in – including Joan’s need to provide for her daughter, Kelly (Mia Millichamp-Long) – to keep you emotionally invested. The stolen jewellery is gorgeous, though. Joan’s adventures begin in the 1980s, when greed was good and we knew how to flaunt it.
