Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story (BBC1)
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un uses doubles as decoys to thwart his assassins. Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to have a squad of them. And now Piers Morgan has his own double, too.
Robert Glenister mimicked the presenter’s mannerisms and voice with uncanny accuracy in the true-crime drama Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story. Using an exact transcript from Good Morning Britain, he slumped in a pose that conveyed both boredom and irritation, alongside Louise Delamere as co-presenter Susannah Reid.
The scene provided a clever device to explain this story, as Piers and Susannah summed up why Chloe (played here by Nadia Parkes) was on the show. In 2017, while in Milan for a photo shoot, she was kidnapped by masked men who drugged her before holding her for ransom on a farm in the Italian mountains.
A skeptical Piers accused her of lying to police and asked why, if she was being held hostage, one of her captors had taken her shopping to a nearby town.
The horrific story of Chloe Ayling (pictured: Nadia Parkes playing Chloe) has been retold in a new TV series, Kidnapped
The six-part drama follows her terrifying kidnapping, her bravery in captivity and the court case that put her captors behind bars (pictured: Nadia Parkes as Chloe)
Social media was abuzz with accusations that the story was a hoax, cooked up for publicity (pictured: Chloe on Celebrity Big Brother).
In a clear example of how television is obsessed with celebrities and with herself, the real Chloe appeared yesterday with actress Nadia on the sofa again, to be interviewed for This Morning by Rylan and Josie Gibson.
Piers wasn’t the only one who doubted Chloe’s kidnapping claims. Social media was filled with accusations that the story was a setup, staged to gain publicity. The main accusations against her were that she didn’t seem upset enough, that she hadn’t tried to escape or scream for help while shopping, and that the whole thing seemed completely improbable.
This six-part drama, which begins with the first pair of half-hour episodes, takes Chloe’s story at face value but invites viewers to offer their own explanations for what was really going on.
Although she was kidnapped by at least two men, we only see one, known by his initials MD. He tells her that she has been kidnapped by a human trafficking gang who will auction her off as a slave via the Dark Web unless she can buy her freedom.
The Chloe Ayling Story aired on Wednesday on BBC Three at 9pm
Lukasz Herba (pictured during trial) remains behind bars after being sentenced to 16 years in 2018, but this sentence was also later reduced to five years, and he is expected to be released early next year.
But while he begs her to have sex and tries to gain her trust by bringing her food and letting her sleep in his bed, she can’t tell whether he’s a lonely fantasist or a pawn for an organized crime gang…and her only hope for survival.
Nadia Parkes gives a spectacular performance, very elegant for the television cameras but dazed, disheveled and confused as a hostage.
Writer Georgia Lester draws parallels between Chloe’s life in captivity and her role in the fashion industry. Everywhere she goes, she is seen as an object for sale and exploitation. In a flashback, Adrian Edmondson, as her sweaty agent, runs a measuring tape across her thighs before scolding her for eating “doughnuts and spring rolls.”
Whatever the truth about Chloe’s ordeal, young women like her receive little protection in a predatory world. Glamour is a greedy business.
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