I’ll never forget how it felt to watch the visceral rage fill Stephen Graham’s eyes as he landed punch after punch as a bare-knuckle boxer in period drama A Thousand Blows.
However, after seeing a first glimpse at Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd’s upcoming BBC thriller Half Man, I can vow that his show of brutality will give the Adolescence actor a run for his money.
At the Edinburgh TV Festival, Metro was in the audience when the broadcaster shared a clip from the six-part drama, which tells a story spanning 40 years, beginning in the 1980s.
It follows the tale of two ‘brothers’ named Ruben (Richard) and Niall (Jamie Bell), who have a lot of dark history to unpack between them after years of being estranged.
In the clip that the BBC showed, an intimidating Ruben towers over Niall, making his ‘brother’ visibly uncomfortable while saying that if they weren’t family, he’d want to get under his kilt.
After Niall says that he’s wearing boxers underneath, Ruben responds: ‘Boxers. Stop teasing me, you little minx.’
Speaking in a deep, menacing voice, he orders Niall to look at him, muttering that the pair of them ‘feel each other’s pains’.
‘One more time mate, for old time’s sake. I just need to hear, before I lose you forever. Go on, say it.’
Together, they complete the sentence: ‘Your brother from another lover.’
But then out of nowhere, Ruben socks Niall in the face, punching him so hard that the back of his head hits the wall.
He doesn’t stop there, pummelling his ‘brother’ in the face again, leaving Niall staggering in his suit as he’s forced to endure the shocking demonstration of violence.
The moment instantly took me back to watching A Thousand Blows in February this year, when Stephen’s Sugar Goodson showed absolutely no mercy in the underground bare-knuckle boxing ring, especially when facing Malachi Kirby’s Hezekiah Moscow.
What has Richard Gadd said about Half Man?
In addition to playing one of the lead characters in Half Man, Richard Gadd is also the writer and creator of the drama.
He put on 50 pounds of muscle to play the role of Ruben, telling Vanity Fair: ‘It’s about two dysfunctional brothers, but their relationship is a little weirder than brothers.
‘You meet them in a very peculiar situation, and you don’t really know why or how they got there, and they’re having a very weird conversation.’
He explained how the show flahes to six different moments in their lives, one for each episode, which informs the audience how they arrived at this point in time.
‘It’s an exploration of masculinity, and I’m reticent to say toxic masculinity because I think that expression has become quite tired. But, for something to be toxic, it has to be intoxicating first. Drugs are toxic, but they’re intoxicating,’ he continued.
‘I really wanted to get some sort of understanding back into male camaraderie and male relationships. The euphoric, captivating, and exhilarating parts of that, as well as how it all goes wrong.’
Half Man marks a major new direction for Richard, having become a global sensation after the release of his drama Baby Reindeer on Netflix in April last year.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, the BBC’s director of drama, Lindsay Salt, revealed that the clip we watched is from one of the opening scenes of the show.
‘After that punch, you’re then transported back to the 80s, where you meet Niall and Ruben, the two main characters, as 18-year-olds or younger teenagers, and then you follow them over the six episodes, over 40 years,’ she said.
‘It’s a really different role for Richard. When you read all the scripts and see it in the edit now, it’s like a novel. It feels incredibly epic in terms of just that 40 years and really interrogating that central relationship, friendship, relationship, brotherhood, between those two central characters.’
Lindsay also emphasised that the series explores ‘the grey area of masculinity’, which is ‘typical in Richard’s writing’.
‘It’s very rare to see somebody so constantly exploring that area in a way that is provocative. It’s thoughtful and empathetic, and it’s certainly unpredictable.’
Half Man will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in 2026.
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