The synopsis for Richard Gadd’s new drama Half Man says that it explores “brotherhood, violence and the intense fragility of male relationships” – and it arrives at a time when those topics are front and centre of a societal and media conversation.
Last year, Netflix hit Adolescence looked at violence among young men and touched on the manosphere and incel culture, while Louis Theroux’s most recent documentary, Inside the Manosphere, tackled the internet subculture head on when it was released in March.
In spite of all this interest in the topic, Gadd has revealed that he didn’t intend Half Man to be a specific exploration of either toxic masculinity or the manosphere – and was instead based on a “general male problem” he wanted to look at.
When speaking at a Q&A for the series, Gadd was asked whether he was inspired by toxic masculinity or the manosphere when writing to which he said: “I’m aware of them. I’m kind of aware of them even more now than I was when I was writing it.
“I was aware of toxic masculinity more than I was the manosphere. I think the manosphere kind of came into my orbit as of a few months ago, actually, to be honest.”
He continued: “I don’t usually take artistic inspiration from phrases, and these phrases are important because they encapsulate so much complicated stuff. But I sometimes feel like I just have to feel it inwards, in a lot of ways.
“I knew there was a kind of general male problem that I was interested to explore and dig into and try to contextualise to a certain degree, but that’s about as far as it went.
“I didn’t think, ‘Oh, this is a word and I have to take that word and try and put it into a drama.’ Something that was happening, I suppose, in the aether at that period of time, just sparked an idea which couldn’t leave me.”
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Half Man stars Gadd as Ruben, a violent and fierce, yet loyal man, and Jamie Bell as Niall, who is meek and mild-mannered. The two are brought into each other’s lives through circumstance when they are boys, played then by Stuart Campbell and Mitchell Robertson.
The series then charts their lives and their newfound brotherhood over three decades, all leading up to Niall’s wedding day, when an explosion of violence takes place.
Half Man will arrive on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Friday 24 April 2026.
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