First Rule of the Con

The question ‘what’s the best TV show ever made?’ always gives me pause. I start thinking about Star Trek, (and which of those series is the best), Doctor Who, The Good Place, and loads of other seriously strong shows that I really love.

But then I remember that there is an objectively correct answer,* and it’s Hustle.

The original crew

The world is full of crooks and very nasty people, and a lot of them get away with it because they’re rich. The bent politicians, the investment bankers – the ones who’re just out for themselves and nothing else.

Mickey Bricks and his crew of con artists are there to redress the balance. Their first rule is that ‘you can’t cheat an honest man’ – but there are plenty of dishonest ones to keep them busy.

Hustle is 8 series of beautifully crafted cons, each episode setting some of the most genuinely lovable characters I’ve ever encountered against some very unpleasant marks. Albert Stroller (the late Robert Vaughn) ropes in marks for Mickey Bricks (Adrian Lester) to trick as the inside man, while Ash Morgan (Robert Glenister) makes everything happen, from fake IDs to setting up Bollywood film sets. They’re supported at first by master manipulator Stacie Monroe (Jaime Murray) and the brash, impulsive Danny Blue (Marc Warren) – from series 5 onwards they’re replaced by a brother and sister duo of talented novices, Sean and Emma Kennedy (Matt di Angelo and Kelly Adams). And Billy Bond (Ashley Walters) was also there for a bit too.

The second iteration.

They’re a seriously well-crafted set of characters. Each has their own strengths in the actual con, but even when they’re not working their interactions are really well-written – there’s not a two-dimensional one among them. And because every one of them has to play multiple roles in-universe, all the actors get to show off some serious chops. It’s one thing to play multiple parts – it’s another to play multiple parts while always ultimately in character as someone else entirely.

Each con is beautifully set-out. Every episode is a different scam from start to finish (though many a liberty is taken with timelines as the show progresses). There’s definitely a formula: meet the mark, set up the grift, get everything running smoothly until a last-minute complication seems to have sunk the scam before someone in the crew reveals the plan B that they’ve had all along and it all works out in the end. But there’s such a variety of villains and different scams – from fake stamps to the Hollywood sign – that it never gets old, and the showrunners were also smart enough to drop in the odd curveball episode with a completely different structure and theme to break things up. The reveals of the real con are very seldom predictable, and there are some clever scams in there that will genuinely make your jaw drop. And the moment when the smug mark opens up a briefcase full of cash only to find that it’s all bundles of newspaper is never not satisfying, no matter how many times you see it.

And pretty much all the cons are real techniques. There was actually a companion series on BBC 3, The Real Hustle, where real ex-grifters would explain common short-con scams to help stop you getting caught out yourself. But in Hustle itself everything is explained en route too. Sometimes one of the crew will explain an idea to another (the often-hapless Danny Blue usually acting as the audience surrogate). But just as often, a con will be in full swing, building up to its crescendo – and then everything will freeze, and Adrian Lester will turn directly to the camera, in-character, to tell us exactly what’s about to happen. And it works. Hustle plays delightfully fast and loose with the fourth wall: there are plenty of cheeky winks to the audience as someone takes the bait, or acknowledgements of the inherent ridiculousness of the situation. An episode might open with a con-in-progress, or it might start with a monologue to camera about what’s just gone wrong.

Now even if you haven’t watched Hustle, anyone who’s watched the US show Leverage/Leverage: Redemption may be thinking that this sounds familiar. And you’d be right. I’ve only watched a little of it, but it seems that Leverage is essentially the same show, just set in America instead… but Hustle did come first, and there’s a cheeky line in an early episode of Leverage that is apparently straight from the writers:

“Word is on the street that you run the nastiest crew this side of the Atlantic.”

i.e. there’s another crew in the UK who could give the Leverage lot a run for their money…

I love this show. My sister and I came across it when we were kids, but only from season 5 (the cast change) onwards. We watched it to the end, loved it – and then Netflix became a thing and we realised there were 4 more series we’d never seen, so we watched it again. And then we left home and watched it again separately. Then it came off Netflix and I was sad for a while, until it came back onto iPlayer a little while ago and now I’m already halfway through series 4 again. No matter how many times I watch it, Hustle is never not good.

Despite the fact that Hustle was filmed/is set from 2004-12, the premise of hitting the real bastards where it hurts is more relevant than ever these days. Leverage: Redemption seems to be doing pretty well as a more recent take. But I’d love a new series of Hustle more than anything, even with no more Robert Vaughn.

Because if the first rule of the con is ‘you can’t cheat an honest man’… well. There are a lot of marks around these days. And I think we could all use a knowing wink to camera to cheer us up.

*Take this as seriously as you will. But watch Hustle first if you want to argue.