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Frauds is just what the doctor ordered — as the days get shorter and the skies get greyer, the ITV thriller is serving up sunny holiday vibes with a cosy crime twist.
The wild, gripping six-part series follows two old friends and former partners in crime who reunite for one final heist. It's a whirlwind of crazy cons and pulsating plots — and, to make matters even more interesting, it's all set against the sun-drenched backdrop of southern Spain. Yes, please.
As producer Katie Kelly put it, it's a “sunshine noir”. And we are eating it up.
We are also manically checking flights to Spain. If, like us, you are completely taken with the Frauds filming locations, here are the spots where the ITV show set up camp.
Where was Frauds filmed?
Frauds is set in Málaga on the southern coast of mainland Spain.
Anne-Marie O'Connor, who has spent a lot of time in Spain, was inspired by the its “spaghetti western feel.”
She added, "there's a real otherness to it, a dry heat and that kind of outlaw feel you get in places like Las Vegas".
She went on: "Even in famous places like Marbella, where you turn up and everything's catered for, actually you just need to scratch the surface and it can be lawless."
Frauds may be set in southern mainland Spain, but most of it was actually filmed on the island of Tenerife.
Producer Katie Kelly sought out locations that captured that feeling: a "glistening" façade that concealed a darker, grittier “underbelly”.
"Shooting in Tenerife offered us everything we needed and more," she said. “In a small area you can have a sort of Costa del Sol beachside strip full of clubs... and then suddenly you can find yourself in what looks like an old Spanish town or up in lush, verdant mountains.”
Frauds filming locations
Production opted to use a water plant in Candelaria, Tenerife to double as the prison where Bert (Suranne Jones) is held. At the beginning of the show, we Sam (Jodie Whittaker) collecting her after her release.
“The plant opened three months after we filmed there,” said location manager Isidro Gonzales to Time Out. “It looks just like a jail.”
Starring The Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln and Indira Varma.
This remote country estate served as Sam's sprawling home in the show.
“It was amazing, but it rained a lot. Didn't matter – it was stunning. It is literally gonna be in my top five places in life, I loved it so much,” Whittaker said of filming there.
This restaurant doubled as the Cheeky Blinders, a restaurant that appears in the show.
The show is mainly set in southern Spain, but one scene takes us to Madrid — when Bert steals the painting from the Reina Sofía museum. The production team opted to use the real museum as the backdrop.
"I remember Anne-Marie and I were just walking around the Reina Sofía in the middle of the night, and it was just closed for us," lead director Giulia Gandini said of the night shoot. “And we were just wandering around thinking, 'Yeah, we could really steal something right now. We could pull this off.'”
The series plotline has been described as "every parent's worst nightmare".
