Richard Gadd introduces 2 dudes in the Half Man trailer

The new series from the Baby Reindeer creator debuts on HBO this month.

By Drew Gillis  |  April 7, 2026 | 12:36pm
Image courtesy of HBO
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Richard Gadd introduces 2 dudes in the Half Man trailer

Men: They don’t seem to be doing all that well, socially and emotionally speaking. This, at least, is the issue probed by series like Adolescence and Jack Thorne’s forthcoming Lord Of The Flies adaptation, and Louis Theroux’s recent manosphere doc. Half Man, the upcoming series from Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd, seems to be the next entry into this burgeoning canon. This time, Gadd stars as Ruben, the kind of guy any parent would be rightly concerned about, while Jamie Bell stars beside him as the mild Niall.  

An official logline for the series reads: 

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.

As with Baby Reindeer, Gadd also created, wrote, and executive produced Half Man. The first hour-long episode of the series premieres on HBO on April 23. 

 
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