Vanishing Act review: The most beautiful people on TV Down Under? Fraud investigators, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS
Disappearance Act
Celebrity escape to the country
Everyone is breathtakingly beautiful in Australia. The surfers and beach babes, the mechanics, the doctors, the guy who cleans the pool, even the gangsters, all very beautiful.
But in Oz, only the most stunning people become financial regulators. Top Australian stars like Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman have to wake up every morning thinking, “Hollywood is fine, but I wish I was good-looking enough to be a forensic accountant.”
In Vanishing Act (ITV1), Australian Securities and Investments Commission [ASIC] researchers parade through the halls like catwalk models.
They exist in a miasma of pheromones and Chanel No. 5, their perfectly coiffed hair glistening as they exchange cutting jokes about fraudsters.
This must be right, because Vanishing Act is a dramatization of Australia’s most infamous real-life multi-million dollar hoax. They wouldn’t call it a “true crime” if it weren’t true, right?
Vanishing Act, which continues tonight, attempts to fuel conspiracy theory that Melissa Caddick faked her own death
Kate Atkinson as Melissa Caddick and Maya Stange as Angie in ITV’s Vanishing Act
Kate Atkinson plays Melissa Caddick, the divorced mother who systematically robbed all her relatives and friends, and all their relatives, by convincing them to invest in her pyramid scheme. She took their savings, showed them false reports of skyrocketing profits and squandered the wealth on luxury holidays and a designer wardrobe.
She was especially generous to her toyboy, former hairdresser and amateur ‘music producer’ Anthony Koletti – a man so weak he couldn’t follow the plots in Neighbours. Perhaps it is to Anthony’s advantage that the drama continues to pause, with subtitles appearing on screen to identify the various characters.
“George, rich guy,” said one. “Nash, pool guy,” said another. Anthony’s caption should have read, “Lake Duck guy,” which was Melissa’s nickname for him (after a bird with the world’s longest… er, let’s say plumage).
The Caddick story became a national sensation Down Under after her disappearance in 2020. And she achieved global infamy thanks to a popular podcast, Liar Liar, from the Sydney Morning Herald.
This is the second Australian true crime story to air on British TV in the past month, following The Murder Of Lyn Dawson on Sky – also the subject of a critically acclaimed podcast. In both complex cases, the expanded format of the audio probes gave armchair investigators much more detail.
Vanishing Act, which continues tonight, attempts to fuel the conspiracy theory that Caddick faked her own death.
It started with the discovery of her severed foot, still in a trainer, washed up on a beach 300 miles from her home overlooking Sydney Harbor and the Opera House.
Her voice narrates the dramatization, warning us that if we think she committed suicide, we must be as gullible as her most naive victims.
The whole thing is improbable, whichever way you interpret it, but I can’t give much credence to the idea that she chopped off a foot, left it for the sunbathers to discover, and is now sitting on the residue of a life of one-legged anonymity enjoy. of her $40 million scam.
If she’s down to half a million, she could do worse than hide out in the Peak District, where quaint cottages within 40 minutes of central Manchester are cheaper than many one-bedroom flats in London.
The celebrity version of Escape to the Country feels slightly fraudulent: Will a star ever buy a property based on his recommendations?
Pictured: Ranj Singh, the doctor previously on This Morning, house hunting with Denise Nurse on the BBC1 show
This Morning’s doctor Ranj Singh was house hunting with Denise Nurse in new spin-off Celebrity Escape To The Country (BBC1).
This version of the show, with semi-famous clients looking for new homes, feels slightly fraudulent: Will a star ever buy a property based on his recommendations?
All the houses were quirky, including a converted mill and a mock castle, complete with turret.
Dr. Ranj was alarmed by any garden bigger than a flower box. “Being so remote makes me a little nervous,” he worried.
You’re a city boy, doctor. Stay seated.