Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story (BBC1)
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un uses lookalikes as decoys to foil assassins. Russian president Vladimir Putin reputedly has a squad of them. And now Piers Morgan too has his own body double.
Robert Glenister mimicked the abrasive presenter’s gestures 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, beside Louise Delamere as co-host Susannah Reid.
The scene supplied a neat device to explain this story, as Piers and Susannah summed up why Chloe (played here by Nadia Parkes) was on the show. In Milan for a photoshoot in 2017, she was seized by masked men, who drugged her before she was held for ransom at a farmhouse in the Italian mountains.
A sceptical Piers accused her of lying to the police and demanded why, if she was being held hostage, one of her captors took her shopping in a nearby village.
Chloe Ayling’s (pictured: Nadia Parkes playing Chloe) horrific story has been retold in a new TV series, Kidnapped
The six-part drama follows terrifying kidnap, her bravery in captivity and the court case that put her kidnappers behind bars (pictured: Nadia Parkes as Chloe)
Social media was frantic with accusations that the story was a set-up, staged for publicity (pictured Chloe on Celebrity Big Brother)
In a prime illustration of how TV is obsessed with celebrity and itself, the real Chloe turned up with actress Nadia on the sofa again yesterday, to be interviewed for This Morning by Rylan and Josie Gibson.
Piers was not alone in doubting Chloe’s kidnap claims. Social media was frantic with accusations that the story was a set-up, staged for publicity. The chief charges against her were that she didn’t seem upset enough, that she hadn’t tried to escape or scream for help on the shopping trip, and that it all sounded completely improbable.
This six-part drama, which opened with the first pair of half-hour episodes, takes Chloe’s story at face value but invites viewers to supply their own explanations for what was really going on.
Though she was seized by at least two men, we only see one, known by his initials M.D. He tells her she has been abducted by a people trafficking gang who will auction her 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, on trial) is still behind bars after being sentenced to 16 years in 2018 but this too was later cut by five years, and he is expected to be released early next year
But as he begs her for sex, and tries to win her trust by bringing her food and letting her sleep in his bed, she doesn’t know whether he’s a lonely fantasist or a pawn in an organised crime gang — and her only hope of survival.
Nadia Parkes puts in a terrific performance, glammed up for the TV cameras but groggy, dishevelled and confused as a hostage.
Writer Georgia Lester draws parallels between Chloe’s life in captivity and her role in the fashion industry. Wherever she goes, she’s seen as an object for sale and exploitation. In one flashback, Adrian Edmondson, as her sweaty agent, runs a tape measure around her thighs, before scolding her for eating ‘doughnuts and spring rolls’.
Whatever the truth of Chloe’s ordeal, young women like her are given little protection in a predatory world. Glamour is a greedy business.
