CHAINED

Handcuffs may be among sculptor Samantha Jones’s favorite toys, but not when they’re shackling her to the ceiling in some nasty cellar God knows where. That’s how the animal rights fanatics have squirreled her away, though, after mistaking her for Sarah Fossett, the meat-eating, fur-wearing actress who’s got the role portraying Sam (Strawberry Tattoo, 2000, etc.) in the six-part BBC gangster miniseries Driven. Sam is badly beaten but eventually escapes; she’s luckier than Sarah’s current boyfriend, Country Vet star Paul Hinks, who turns up in Sarah’s apartment disemboweled. The two crimes freak out the usually mellow Driven cast, but not so completely that they can’t descend on convalescent Sam’s loft en masse to party and complain about how filthy she keeps her loo. Actors Tony and Keith gorge themselves on cake; wardrobe mistress Siobhan and her stagehand boyfriend Sanjay get high; production coordinator Karen polishes off an entire box of Mr. Kipling’s Fondant Fancies. Even Sarah’s dodgy new boyfriend Vince (who’s actually her dodgy old boyfriend from before Paul) is generous enough to bring a few bottles of bubbly. But it’s Sam’s old friends—her lover Hugo, the lead actor on Driven who first brought her into the project; Tom, her best friend from college; Devo, hunt saboteur turned corporate; and Lurch, guardian of her sculptor’s tools—who do the heavy lifting when it comes to unmasking a murderer.

Life imitates art imitating life in Henderson’s edgy tale of manipulation and deception.