The BBC’s dramatisation of Chloe Ayling’s 2017 abduction, Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story, faces a fundamental problem: the facts of the case are convoluted, bitty and frustrating. The six-part series, written by Georgia Lester, attempts to faithfully recreate the events, but the reality of the crime proves difficult to shape into compelling drama.
Ayling, a British model, was hired for a photoshoot in Milan in 2017. Upon arrival, she was attacked by masked men, drugged with ketamine, and driven to a remote farmhouse. She was released six days later despite a ransom not being paid. The drama opens with a flash-forward to her interview on Good Morning Britain, where Piers Morgan aggressively pressed her on inconsistencies in her story, a moment that captures the public scepticism she faced.
The show highlights the online abuse Ayling endured, with viewers branding her a “fake” based on incomplete information. It also depicts the everyday harassment she faced as a woman, suggesting a pattern of being treated as “fair game” by men. However, the first two episodes focus heavily on the abduction itself, which largely consists of interactions between Ayling (played by Nadia Parkes) and her captor, Lukasz Herba (Julian Swiezewski). Herba claimed to be working for a dark web mafia called Black Death and told Ayling she would be auctioned as a sex slave.
The drama is constrained by its adherence to real events, which were often nonsensical. Herba’s plan was bungled from the start, and much of what he said and did makes little sense. Without a coherent criminal psyche to explore, the truth becomes frustrating rather than illuminating. The series is admirably accurate, but the story it tells is as bitty and stupid as the crime itself.
