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Vanishing Act continues to confirm that there are few things more scummy in life than fraudsters.
In this case, it’s all about Australian Melissa Caddick (Kate Atkinson), who did a disappearing act after she was sussed out for fraudulent activities, rather like Michelle Mone, today… except that she’s since tried to come clean on TV by admitting she was lying. Er…
We have a brief scene, early on, on February 21st 2021, when Melissa’s shoe was found, with her foot apparently still in it. Ewww… Since she’d gone missing 3 months earlier after being dodgy as hell, the cops figure she’d topped herself. Sorted, yes?
The plot then takes a trip back to show how she set up her company, cajoling friends, family and anyone she could arrange into giving her many millions to invest in shares and other high-profit companies, giving them all a high-rate return. Sounds great, surely?
The way this works is that rather than investing, she steals the cash, make fake accounts in their place, sends them out to the clients, and somehow she can’t begin to imagine how this will all go wrong?? This is what’s known as a Ponzi scheme, similar to pyramid selling, since if one client ever does want to cash in, she has enough coming in from the others – as well as new clients – to pay them back. In theory, of course.
But with so many millions involved, how long before the cops are on to her?
Overall, this is a very intriguing mini-series, and Kate Atkinson certainly puts on a great performance as Ms Caddick, given how you just want to reach into the screen and wring her neck. In fact, she comes across as dodgy as those behind the Intellivision Amico games console scam, who have taken $18m to date, and delivered nothing but a broken app!
It does feel a bit stupid in the plotting at times, when you reflect on it, but it’s far more engaging than most things on the tellybox of late.
Vanishing Act begins tonight on ITV at 9pm, and continues on Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s already online at ITVX, but is not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Series Directors: Geoff Bennett, Jenny Hicks
Producers: Matt Ford, Kerrie Mainwaring
Writers: Matt Ford, Michael Miller
Music: Amanda Brown
Cast:
Melissa Caddick: Kate Atkinson
Angie Beyersdorf: Maya Stange
Anthony Koletti: Jerome Velinsky
Barbara Grimley: Anne Tenney
Ted Grimley: Frankie J Holden
George K: Colin Friels
Nash Malouf: Dylan Hare
Phoebe Quinn: Ursula Mills
Vincent Lee: Tai Hara
Josh: Otis Dhanji
Teenage Melissa: Annie Rose Buckley
Teenage Angie: Gabi Sproule
Child Melissa: Ruby Cuelho
Child Angie: Hannah Wrage
Adam Grimley: Bryce Youngman
Wendy: Sophie Bloom
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.