Gadd and Jamie Bell are so frank they’re almost feral in a show so violent you’ll think you can taste blood in your mouth. This man can hit a nerve like no other
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art of the thrill of Baby Reindeer was the feeling of watching the birth of a monster. Comedians starring in their first scripted drama tend to base their characters gently on themselves, prodding at their own foibles without doing proper damage – but Richard Gadd set fire to that safety net by dramatising his own experience of being stalked, along with other, even darker moments of victimhood, with an honesty that was transgressive.
On screen and in his old real life, the helpless Gadd’s unhinged admirer Martha (Jessica Gunning) pursued him unstoppably, like the fiend in a horror movie; once Baby Reindeer’s word-of-mouth popularity exploded and Gadd won major awards for playing himself at his most vulnerable, though, his success made him one of the most powerful creators in television. That queasy disconnect was fascinating. The prospect of watching a new Richard Gadd show is exciting, of course. It’s also a bit frightening.
What’s immediately interesting, psychologically speaking, about the six-part BBC iPlayer drama Half Man (from Friday) is that it’s another show about a terrifying black hole of a person ruining the life of someone who shows them weakness. But now, writer-creator Gadd has cast himself not as the target but as the monster. Muscled up beyond recognition and sporting a straggly beard and brutal bowl-cut – a combo bizarre enough to turn its wearer into a horror icon, like Leatherface or Michael Myers – Gadd’s new alter ego is all id. He is vengeance, pure and raw.
