Richard Gadd says he 'owes everything' to the Edinburgh Fringe as he unveils new Half Man show
Richard Gadd shot to fame with Baby Reindeer, which was initially a one-man stage play at the Fringe
Richard Gadd has said he “owes everything” to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as he spoke at the premiere screening of his first show since Baby Reindeer.
The writer and actor said he had his next project already in the pipeline after the launch of Glasgow-set Half Man, on BBC One, where he plays character Ruben, starring alongside Jamie Bell as his stepbrother, Niall.
However, he hinted at a potential future return to the festival, saying he wanted to “go back to the stage”.
Half Man - which deals with the relationship between Niall and Ruben, both as adults, portrayed by Gadd and Bell and teenagers, when they are played by Stuart Campbell and Mitchell Robertson - is set in Glasgow in the 1980s, which Gadd said had been a choice to demonstrate the “fundamental” changes in the city.
Gadd last appeared at the Fringe in 2019, with the stage play version of Baby Reindeer, which was produced by Francesca Moody, who was also behind the Fringe success of Fleabag. It 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.
Speaking at the Glasgow Film Theatre, where the first two episodes were screened, Gadd said he regarded the Fringe - where he started out as a struggling stand-up comedian, inspiring his semi-autobiographical character in award-winning Baby Reindeer - as the turning point in his career.
He said: “I definitely want to go back to the stage at some point. I owe the Edinburgh Festival everything. Like, everything. People always come up to me and ask if I have any advice and I don’t have any advice, a secret sauce that would allow everyone to get on in their career. But the only advice I can give is to say ‘go to the Edinburgh Festival”.
“It is an arts festival, but it is also where the entire industry - not just here, but also from America - congregates for a month. I can guarantee that by the end of the month, something will have happened that will improve your life or career.”
Gadd said he had not initially planned to act in Half Man, which he also wrote and is executive producer, but had been persuaded to do so by Bell after he sent him the script. He said he had started work on Half Man just hours after finishing the final version of Baby Reindeer for TV.
He said: “After Baby Reindeer, I thought I’d never do that again, it’s very taxing to be a show runner and also be in front of the camera. But I sent the script to Jamie Bell and he said he wanted me to play Ruben and round about that time, the channels were also making calls for it.”
He said he had initially planned to be a sit com writer, having been inspired by The Office as a child, however, his life “took a dramatic turn”, resulting in darker work.
He said: “It’s not like I set out to be edgy. I find human beings to be fundamentally flawed and challenging and a mixture of good and the bad and I think we’ve lost that a little bit, not only in rhetoric on society in general, but on TV. It’s often very easy to see who is the good person and who is the bad person and that doesn’t interest me that much.
“It was my dream one day to have a sit com, but my life took a kind of dramatic turn and my sensibilities changed and this is the kind of work I do now.”
He added: “But if my life shifts again and I find myself in a sphere of happiness, then maybe I’ll write a studio sit com.”
Half Man will be shown on BBC One from next Tuesday and will be on BBC iPlayer from Friday.
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.