Richard Gadd returns to TV with a new gritty drama

Richard Gadd’s long-awaited follow-up to Baby Reindeer has, on the surface, nothing in common with his Netflix mega-hit .

All of the formal experimentation and ricocheting wit has gone, making Half Man hard to immediately love in the same manner .

While the series opens with Niall (Jamie Bell) being confronted threateningly by his stepbrother Ruben (a shirtless and beefed up Gadd), the story is then told in flashbacks.

And yet, this teen trope is rendered here in deeply troubling psychological form — this is less High School Musical, more Scum.

Ruben’s darkly toxic masculinity is petrifying, and while Niall is both hurt and controlled by him, he also feels protected — and quite turned on.

He watches Ruben dance shirtless alone in his room.

He falls asleep in Ruben’s arms after he has been almost strangled to death.

Most disturbingly, Ruben arranges for a girl to come into their room and forces Niall to have sex with her.

It’s a deeply uncomfortable watch.

Ruben’s nickname for Niall is Bambi, a nod back to Baby Reindeer, and actually there are parallels.

No doubt as the series progresses, the show will also delve further into trauma, obsession, the sexual and psychological fallout from different forms of assault, and how friendship can curdle into obsession.

It’s brave work from Gadd, there is little trace of the nerdy stand-up we all loved in his previous show, and there’s a sense of him trying to do something genuinely new and unexpected.

Will people stick with it for long enough to discover what’s in store though?