Overview
- The six-episode drama, which premiered Thursday on HBO in the U.S. and Friday on BBC iPlayer in the UK, is rolling out weekly through late May.
- Half Man follows a destructive 30-year bond between two men who grew up like brothers, using a wedding-day incident to frame a decades-spanning story told through flashbacks.
- Early reception is split, with praise for performances from Richard Gadd, Jamie Bell, and the younger leads, and criticism of relentless bleakness and graphic depictions of sex and violence; Rotten Tomatoes hovered around 72% in initial tallies.
- Gadd has stressed that the series is purely fictional despite comparisons to his autobiographical Baby Reindeer, saying he drew on themes he wanted to explore rather than real people.
- The BBC/HBO co-production casts Stuart Campbell and Mitchell Robertson as the younger versions of Ruben and Niall, with adult roles played by Gadd and Bell, and was filmed and set in Scotland.