Richard Gadd's New HBO Series 'Half Man' to Debut in April
Richard Gadd's "Baby Reindeer" follow-up is coming to television this April.
Baby Reindeer was one of Netflix’s most unexpected hits in 2024. A dark, compulsively watchable, and surprisingly funny tale of stalking, trauma, and repeated cycles of abuse, it went on to rack up awards season hardware, winning six Emmy Awards, four BAFTAs, and two Golden Globes.
The show made its creator and star, Richard Gadd, an instant sensation. It also left virtually everyone in the industry desperate to see what the... let’s just call him unconventional creator would do next. The answer is Half Man, a limited series for HBO and the BBC, that has the potential to be every bit as controversial as his previous effort.
It follows Ruben (Gadd) and Niall (Jamie Bell), two friends with a volatile, decades-long relationship that has shaped much of their adult lives. An exploration of rage and dysfunctional manhood, their story picks up again when Ruben turns up at Niall’s wedding three decades later, an act that necessitates a reckoning of all that has come before.
Here’s the series’ synopsis.
Niall and Ruben are brothers. Not related in blood but the closest you can get. One, fierce and loyal. The other, meek and mild-mannered. Inseparable youth. Brought into each other’s lives through death and circumstance, all they have is each other… But when Ruben turns up at Niall’s wedding three decades later, everything seems different. He is on edge. Shifty. Not acting like himself. And soon, an explosion of violence takes place which catapults us back through their lives, from the eighties to the present day.
Capturing 30 years in the lives of these broken men, Half Man is a six-part limited series exploring brotherhood, violence, and the intense fragility of male relationships. After all, when things fall apart… It is sometimes the closest relationships which break the hardest.
Alongside Bell and Gadd, the series’s ensemble cast also includes several PBS regulars: Stuart Campbell (Baptiste), Neve McIntosh (All Creatures Great & Small), Tim Downie (Miss Scarlet), and Stuart McQuarrie (Elizabeth is Missing). The series will also feature Marianne McIvor (Lady Chatterley’s Lover), Mitchell Robertson (Curfew), Bilal Hasna (The Agency), Julie Cullen (Traces), Amy Manson (The Diplomat), Anjli Mohindra (Get Millie Black), Tom Andrews (This England), Philippine Velge (The Serpent Queen), and Sandy Batchelor (The Capture). Supporting cast includes Scot Greenan (Mary Queen of Scots), Piers Ewart (The Primrose Railway Children), Charlie De Melo (Coronation Street), and newcomers Charlotte Blackwood, Calum Manchip, and Kate Robson-Stuart.
The six-part series is created and written by Gadd, with Alexandra Brodski (Rivals) and Eshref Reybrouck (This City is Ours) splitting directing duties. Gadd is also an executive producer alongside Sophie Gardiner and Anna O’Malley, as well as Gaynor Holmes for the BBC and Gavin Smith for BBC Scotland. The series is produced by Mam Tor Productions (a Banijay UK company) in association with Thistledown Pictures, for BBC iPlayer, BBC One, BBC Scotland, and HBO.
Half Man will premiere on a still-to-be-determined date in April 2026 on HBO, and will be available to stream on HBO Max in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, and on BBC iPlayer, BBC One, and BBC Scotland in the UK and Ireland.
Get more Telly Visions delivered to your inbox and eyeballs.
