Richard Gadd

Comedy career

Gadd began performing stand-up comedy and musical comedy while he was a student at Glasgow University in 2008. He entered the Glasgow heats of the Chortle new comedian awards in 2009.^[12][11][13] In 2010 Gadd performed his first Edinburgh Fringe show, Richard Gadd: 6 And Half A 7.^[14] In 2011, Gadd was a Chortle Student Comedy Awards finalist.^[15] In 2012, Gadd co-performed in the Edinburgh Fringe show Gadd, Kirk And Winning – Well, This Is Awkward…, and trained at the Oxford School of Drama, completing a one-year course in 2012.^[16][17] He then moved to London to pursue his comedy career.^[18] Gadd's 2013 Edinburgh Fringe show, Cheese & Crack Whores, and his 2014 show, Breaking Gadd, both went on to have runs at London's Soho Theatre.^[10] The Guardian wrote that his first two shows "purported to be autobiographical accounts of the young Scotsman's bleak life, a roundelay of failed relationships, blackouts, abusive therapists and fratricide."^[10] In 2015, The Guardian called him a "schlock comic with a name for gaudy multimedia tales of drug addiction and sexual violence, mental illness and gore".^[19] Gadd's 2015 Edinburgh Fringe show, Waiting for Gaddot, was intentionally more mainstream than its predecessors and gained Gadd more success and wider attention.^[10] Waiting for Gaddot won an Amused Moose Comedy Award in 2015 and a Scottish Comedy Award for Best Solo Show in 2016.^[20][21] It was also nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award for Innovation and a Chortle Award for Innovation.^[22]

Gadd's 2016 Fringe show Monkey See Monkey Do won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Comedy Show and was also nominated for a Total Theatre Award for Innovation.^[23][24] Later that year, Gadd won a Chortle Comedian's Comedian Award and was nominated for an Off West End Theatre Award for Best Performer.^[25][26] The show then had several sell-out runs at Soho Theatre, toured the UK and Europe,^[27] and had a run at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where it was nominated for the 2017 Barry Award.^[28][29] In 2017 it was broadcast as part of Comedy Central's Soho Theatre Live series.^[30]

Acting and screenwriting

As an actor, Gadd had multiple credits in various television series, television films and short films before his breakout success in Baby Reindeer. His acting career began with a role in a 2014 episode of BBC Scotland's Scot Squad and continued in four episodes of E4's Tripped in 2015. He starred opposite Daniel Mays in the 2017 BAFTA-nominated BBC Two single drama Against the Law. Gadd's other acting credits include BBC Three's Clique, Sky Arts's One Normal Night, and Sky One's Code 404. He has also appeared in several short films.^[31] Gadd wrote for Netflix's Sex Education and has written episodes of Ultimate Worrier for Dave and The Last Leg for Channel 4. In 2022, Gadd starred as Conrad Lennox in three episodes of the Disney+ series Wedding Season.^[11] Several of his projects have aired on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland.^[32] Gadd wrote and starred in the drama Half Man that aired on HBO and BBC in 2026 alongside Jamie Bell.

Baby Reindeer

While a jobbing comedian, Gadd worked as a bartender at The Hawley Arms pub in Camden Town, London. There he met 'Martha', who became the main character in Baby Reindeer.^[33] Baby Reindeer began as a 2019 Edinburgh fringe show, a dark comedy chronicling Gadd's experiences of being stalked by 'Martha' and sexually assaulted by a man he met earlier in his career. It was Gadd's breakout success and won two Edinburgh Fringe awards: The Scotsman Fringe First Award for New Writing and a Stage Award for Acting Excellence.^[34][35] The show then had a five-week run at London's Bush Theatre,^[36] where it won an Off West End Theatre Award for Best Video Design and was nominated in the Best Performer category.^[37] The show later transferred to the Ambassador's Theatre in London's West End but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[38] A few months later, the show won the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre.^[39]

In April 2024, Netflix released a semi-autobiographical seven-episode drama based on Gadd's play and billed as a 'true story'.^{[40][4][18][41]} Gadd lost 28 kilograms to play the fictionalized version of himself in order to feel "vulnerable and fragile". Baby Reindeer also featured a fictionalized version of Gadd's parents.^[42] Within a week of its release, Baby Reindeer was the top series on Netflix globally, having garnered more than 52 million viewing hours.^[43] The enormous success and popularity of Baby Reindeer resulted in a notable annual increase in spending on Netflix digital subscriptions.^[44]

The woman depicted as 'Martha' in Baby Reindeer, portrayed as having stalked and sexually assaulted Gadd, was quickly identified as Fiona Harvey, a Scottish lawyer.^[5] Harvey denied Gadd's accusations and depiction of her, said she had never been to jail, as depicted in the Netflix show, and is pursuing a multi-million-pound defamation claim against Netflix.^[45] A former colleague has also questioned the version of events in Baby Reindeer.^[33] Although not directly named in Harvey's lawsuit against Netflix, Gadd has fully supported Netflix's defence against Harvey's claims and requested to have her suit dismissed, defending the veracity of Baby Reindeer and reiterating accusations made against Harvey for stalking.^[46]

Half Man

Gadd wrote and starred in BBC and HBO six-parter, Half Man, after Baby Reindeer.^[47] Like his earlier work, Gadd says the show explores subjects that have affected him personally, including abuse, sexuality, obsession, addiction, and masculinity. He credits making art with helping him understand those experiences.^[48] Ruben is not based on a real person. "It’s not based on anyone or drawn from anyone at all," he says.^[49] However, Gadd says most people recognize the type of person Ruben represents—a man whose presence inspires a primal sense of fear. Gadd says that the show is about "struggling to love yourself and struggling to love someone else.”^[50]

The co-production on Half Man started principal photography in Scotland in February 2025. It wrapped five months later.^[51] Gadd put on more than 50 pounds of muscle to play Ruben and has slimmed down only marginally since the shoot ended.^[52] He followed a strict, highly regimented training and nutrition program—working with professionals, eating pre-planned meals on a fixed schedule, and maintaining complete discipline—to build a realistic, lived-in physique rather than a stereotypical Hollywood body.^[53] Gadd deliberately transformed his voice to make the character feel more intimidating and "animalistic." Wanting to create a stark contrast with the anxious, neurotic Donny Dunn from Baby Reindeer, Gadd spent months doing daily vocal exercises to deepen his register, developing a lower, gruffer, and more abrasive sound. He also incorporated grunts, growls, and a guttural laugh into Ruben's speech, aiming to give the character a primal presence that felt physically imposing.^[54] Gadd said the vocal work became a key part of his overall transformation, helping him create a character who seemed to operate on a deeper and more threatening level than those around him.^[55]

Film

Television