From Baby Reindeer to Half Man: the return of Richard Gadd

From Baby Reindeer to Half Man: the return of Richard Gadd | Stan: Half Man | The Guardian
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Stan: Half Man
From Baby Reindeer to Half Man: the return of Richard Gadd
Two years after Baby Reindeer put Richard Gadd on everybody’s map, he’s back with another devastating show.
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Fri 24 Apr 2026 05.10 CEST Last modified on Tue 5 May 2026 07.42 CEST
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Richard Gadd is a born storyteller. Fresh from the runaway success of Baby Reindeer, the Scottish writer and actor returns to our screens this month to once again captivate with biting social commentary and devastating human experience.
Half Man follows the lives of two very different men thrust together by circumstance as teenagers. Niall is a mild-mannered introvert living a suburban existence, while Ruben is a charismatic exhibitionist at constant odds with the law. Over six episodes, we’re catapulted through time, as witnesses to shocking acts of violence and hurt.
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Told over decades and set against the changing face of Glasgow, Half Man is a commentary on male rage, identity and abuse. Niall and Ruben’s relationship won’t be familiar to most viewers. It will challenge and enrage them, and force them to consider a new perspective. It will demand they consider where violence begins, how it’s allowed to thrive – and where it ends.
This is heart-in-mouth television at its most viciously energised. Compelling. Enraging. Human.
Like Baby Reindeer, Gadd’s new show takes inspiration from real life. It’s a part of his history that was first staged in his 2016 one-man show Monkey See Monkey Do.
Critics called Monkey See Monkey Do “moving”, “brave” and “magnificent”, and Half Man seems destined for similar acclaim. But while Gadd’s background is on the comedy circuit, Half Man represents a profoundly dark side of his storytelling. What has often been a bleakly comedic tone becomes brutal, honest and devastating.
Gadd, a three-time Emmy winner, has built a career on transforming traumatic personal experience into compelling art. He says TV executives told him he was the most Googled person in the world for a few days following the release of Baby Reindeer in 2024. It was a sudden rise to fame he called “terrible”, “mad” and “weird”. His reputation is built on exploring themes that resonate, bringing empathy and anger to offer community amid loneliness.
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Baby Reindeer put Gadd on the map: 38% of people who watched it later searched for more about him and his life. What they found was a funnyman with a traumatic past, a thespian turning pain into poetry, an advocate using art to give a voice to stories often unheard.
This April, when Half Man premieres, fans will see a very different show from Baby Reindeer. But it’s unmistakably Gadd’s work. He’s written it. He’s produced it. He stars in it.
And it beats to the rhythm of his heart: truthful, powerful, broken.
Watch the new series Half Man, only on Stan.
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