Half Man: Richard Gadd series explores male rage

I first encountered Richard Gadd in 2016.

He was clad in pink lycra and running on a treadmill for the whole hour of his Edinburgh Fringe show.

The premise was he was trying to outrun his demons and win the "Man's Man competition in Mansfield".

But beneath the frivolity lay a darker truth about Gadd's own experience of sexual assault.

"It sounds mad," he recalls.

"But I promise you it worked. That was when I started to to explore the discomfort of masculine pressure."

Monkey See Monkey Do won critical acclaim and was a turning point in Gadd's career. Three years later, he returned to Edinburgh with another one-man show show exploring abuse - Baby Reindeer.

The story of Donny Dunn, a comedian and barman who becomes the target of a stalker, it too won critical acclaim and was swiftly commissioned as a series by Netflix. Gadd was cast as the lead and wrote the screenplay.

Released exactly two years ago, Baby Reindeer brought Gadd global recognition. But it also brought controversy and criticism.

Scottish lawyer Fiona Harvey outed herself as the inspiration for the show's obsessive stalker, suing Netflix for defamation and negligence for billing it as "a true story".

The $170m dollar case is still going through the US courts.

It has cast a long shadow over Gadd but he was keen to get back to work, keen to get back writing about masculinity.

"There were lots of conversations around male rage," he says.

"I thought it would be interesting to take two broken men in adult life and flashback to their childhood to see what made them the way they are."

He began writing Half Man the day after completing the script for Baby Reindeer.

The new series examines the dysfunctional and volatile relationship between two men growing up in Glasgow in the 1980s.

It begins on the wedding day of Niall (Jamie Bell) with the unexpected arrival of Reuben (Richard Gadd) who immediately punches him in the face.

Through flashbacks over six episodes, we learn why the two are so irredeemably attracted and repelled by one another.

Gadd never intended to play Reuben, whose violent rages account for many of the show's most uncomfortable scenes.

"After Baby Reindeer, I thought 'I'm not doing that again'. I wanted a break from acting, which can be very taxing, especially if you're showrunning too."

But when Jamie Bell was cast as Niall, the gentler, more repressed character of the duo, he persuaded Gadd to take the role.

"Reuben was the one character left and I guess he terrified me enough to make me want to do it."

For two years, Gadd threw himself into the work required as writer, showrunner, producer and actor. He transformed his physique to create Reuben's intimidating presence.

"It was tough, writing and working out six days a week. My body was in pain but I needed to do it to get to the character."

"With Baby Reindeer, I wanted to feel vulnerable and slight," he says.

"It helped the story to see an emaciated body. With Reuben, I just wanted to feel the character in the body and feel physically imposing opposite Jamie."

"It was important to transform away from Donny Dunn in Baby Reindeer. The last thing I wanted was to go from a guy in a comedy suit and a guy in a biker jacket and people to just see the same person."

Half Man is bleak and unflinching in its view of masculinity. In the era of male influencers and the "manosphere", it could not be more topical.

But it's a story which dates back a decade, long before that phrase entered the common conversation.

"I only heard about the manosphere a few months ago – and now it's prevalent but I don't think it's about that," he says.

"It's about two men who can't find the ability to love each other or themselves."

Gadd says he'll take a short break before returning to his next project, but he's coy about details.

He'd like to return to the stage and has ambitions to make films and further TV projects.

And having grown up loving The Office, he's only half joking when he says he wants to write a sitcom.

"That was always my dream, but life 'took a dramatic turn', resulting in much darker work," he says.

"If my life shifts again and I find myself in a sphere of happiness then maybe I'll write a studio sitcom."

Half Man is available on BBC iPlayer from 24 April. It will air on BBC One and BBC Scotland in the UK and on HBO in the US.