Hustle
The
World of the Hustler - Tony Jordan, chief script writer
 "I've
always been interested in the underground world of the con artists
so when Kudos approached me to write the scripts for a drama about
grifters and their trade I nearly bit their hand off and couldn't
wait to get started on my research.
"I
ordered every book I could find that dealt with confidence tricksters.
And while I was waiting for those to arrive I re-visited some of
my favourite films of all time.
"The
Sting, The Grifters, House of Games, Oceans Eleven - all clever
enough to have the audience rooting for the robbers not the cops,
smart enough to make you feel no pity for the victim or mark.
"I
soon realised that this was the key. No audience would accept my
characters unless they identified with them, wanted the cons to
succeed. But how to do that?
"The
answer arrived with the two dozen books I then spent a whole summer
reading. They introduced me to a world I believe has been lost forever.
"The
confidence men I was reading about, most of whom operated a hundred
years ago on the other side of the Atlantic, would throw themselves
under a bus rather than con some poor old lady out of her life savings.
"These
men weren't the petty thieves the phrase 'con men' conjures up today
- these were the aristocrats of crime.
"Glorious
characters with names like Yellow Kid Weil, Limehouse Chappie, The
Alabama Kid and Louisville Henry. All of them repeated a phrase
over and over which the moment I read I knew would be at the heart
of the series: 'You can't cheat an honest man.'
"Once
I had that, I knew the series would work. This wasn't to be a world
of cowboy builders, petty theft or juvenile mail order schemes -
this was a series about a lost art form, the long con.
"It
was a world of marks and inside men, of fixers and ropers and shills
and big stores. When the Yellow Kid announced his retirement from
the con in 1934 he was said to have earned $8 million.
"I
think there are still people perpetrating the big cons these days,
but now they're called banks, credit card companies, internet moguls
and multi-nationals. They've turned us all into marks.
"No
one knows this better than Mickey Bricks and his team and they're
happy to turn the tables whenever they can.
 "I
wanted Hustle to be a series about the art of crime, to be smart
enough to keep you guessing, but accessible enough to entertain
and to raise a smile at the audacity of it all.
"Our
characters are real grifters - they target the establishment, the
greedy. They find the people who want something for nothing... and
give them nothing for something."
Tony Jordan
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