New images as Richard Gadd's Half Man announces launch date

The series, which was filmed mainly in and around Glasgow earlier this year and is supported by Screen Scotland, will be released in weekly episodes on BBC iPlayer from 24 April.

The series also stars Jamie Bell, who shot to fame as a young boy in film Billy Elliot and has since appeared in productions including All Of Us Strangers alongside Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott.

Gadd, from Wormit, Fife, started out performing stand-up in student union gigs in Glasgow and at The Stand Comedy Club, before his first Edinburgh Fringe show in 2010. He last appeared at the Fringe in 2019, with the stage play version of Baby Reindeer, which won a Scotsman Fringe First Award before it transferred to London and was later snapped up by Netflix.

The show won four Emmy Awards in 2024, including Outstanding Limited Series, and secured major wins at the Golden Globes and BAFTA Scotland.

The synopsis for the series states: “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 explores 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.”

Glaswegian actor Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell play Niall and Ruben in their younger years.

Half Man is created, written and executive produced by Richard Gadd.