The trick, Zara Dunne tells her new underling as she shows her round the trades processing floor of the pension management company for which they both now work, is not to dwell on the fact that every day that passes is another day wasted. And to know where the nice biscuits are. This is very good advice for any twentysomething starting their first job, but especially one called Myrtle, as this one is, whom I imagine has already had much of the stuffing knocked out of her by her peers’ reactions to this odd parental choice of moniker.
Soon, however, they are all in need of substantially more comfort than even a chocolate Hobnob can provide, as a team of armed villains swarms the floor. From there, the glossy new six-part thriller Steal kicks into high gear and doesn’t let up for a moment. The baddies – sporting not masks but sophisticated, subtle prosthetics that can fool all the facial recognition software the police will soon be applying to the CCTV footage – herd Zara (Sophie Turner, continuing to deliver sterling work post-Game of Thrones), Myrtle (Eloise Thomas), Zara’s friend and colleague Luke (Archie Madekwe) and the rest of the rank into one conference room while the management committee is locked in another. A couple of gruesome beatings later, so that nobody is in any doubt about the dedication of the villainous gang, Luke and Zara are yanked out and forced to help them execute a set of trades worth £4bn, and the committee is forced to sign off on them all. At one point, Luke crumbles and Zara must step in to save the day. She is hailed as a hero once the thieves have completed their hi-tech heist and left the building.
Hailed as a hero … Sophie Turner with Archie Madekwe in Steal. Photograph: Ludovic Robert/Prime Video
All is, of course, not as it seems. The first twist comes in the closing moments of the brilliantly suspenseful opening hour (which keeps things fresh by making its bad guys nimble, intelligent and very quietly vicious, and lards the financial jiggery-pokery with just enough violence to keep things gripping but not repulsive). Spoiler alert, unless you have seen a heist drama before or read any of the publicity surrounding the show, Zara’s in on it.
Or is she? As the police investigation begins, led by DCI Rhys Kovac (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) who is an astute detective but a man with secrets of his own, the story expands, switchbacks and takes us on a wild ride through layers of deceit, shifting alliances and varying degrees of necessary preposterousness before depositing us, breathless and hugely entertained, safely at the conclusion. It is the debut screenplay of the writer Sotiris Nikias, but he honed his craft writing crime novels under the pen name Ray Celestin, and we all reap the benefits here.
While Luke is soon hopelessly broken by events, Zara is made of sterner stuff. Her survival instincts, rooted in her upbringing at the hands of her alcoholic and volatile mother Haley (there are such emotionally brutal scenes between Turner and Anastasia Hille as Haley that I would gladly watch a purely domestic drama just about them) soon have her taking the fight to those seeking to destroy her. Turner does a fine job of keeping Zara credible – a cornered terrier rather than a superhero – and you long for her to triumph.
Wild ride … DCI Rhys Kovac (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd). Photograph: Colin Hutton/Prime
Amid all the action, however, Steal finds room for thought. While never taking its foot off the narrative gas, the series becomes a meditation on the notion that the love of money is the root of all evil. The world of finance is depicted as one dependent, in essence, on gambling – and gambling by a tiny number of people who use only other people’s cash and who are disproportionately rewarded for doing so. The management committee each earn £1m a year, plus guaranteed bonuses, while the likes of Zara and Luke are paid a fraction of that, even if you factor in the biscuits. Resentment, says Steal, cannot help but build in the company and, if you multiply the experience enough times and continue concentrating wealth generated by many into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals, in society and around the world. What happens then? I have every faith that Zara can take care of herself and her cryptowallet, but the rest of us – increasingly at the mercy of arcane financial systems and players who have nothing but the extraction of wealth in mind – may want to start to organise.
Steal is on Prime Video now
