Jane Tennison is a detective chief inspector assigned to Southampton Row Police Station in Central London. She is repeatedly passed over for major cases but, following the death of a senior investigating officer, she is grudgingly given the opportunity to take over his latest homicide investigation. The crime involves the brutal murder of a young woman whose body has been badly mutilated.
Nellie (Pat Phoenix) is weak and bedridden in her aging, decrepit house due to a bad heart. Living out of her front room, Nellie is looked after by her son Harold (Tom Bell) who is going deaf and prone to eccentric and emotional outbursts following a motorbike accident some years previous. Relations are tense and fractious between Nellie and Harold, a state of affairs which isn't helped by Nellie's affectionate recollections of her estranged son Stanley (Tom Georgeson) who left many years before, taking with him Nellie's savings.
A washed-up actor has a nervous breakdown and believes that he really is the movie monster that he has been hired to play. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.
