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“This is a true story,” declares Netflix’s latest hit show Baby Reindeer.
The visceral, complex tale of stalking and sexual violence that unfolds is based on the experiences of 34-year-old Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, its star and creator. The seven-episode series, woven throughout with dark humour, has sparked critical acclaim and Emmy buzz in equal measure, gaining over 13mn views, and a global audience.
But it has also unleashed tales of internet stalking and harassment as armchair detectives attempt to unearth the true identities of those depicted in the thriller-drama. West Midlands police said this week they were investigating reports of “threatening messages” sent to one individual. In response, Gadd, who has described the drama as “emotionally 100 per cent true” rather than literally so, posted on Instagram: “Please don’t speculate on who any of the real life people could be. That’s not the point of our show.”
Nonetheless, the furore raises questions about who has the right to tell others’ stories. Where do Netflix and Gadd’s responsibilities lie? And, in a dilemma also seen in autofiction, where does one draw the line between real life and literary flourish?
Baby Reindeer begins with a small act of kindness. Donny, a jobbing comedian working in a London pub, played by Gadd, sneaks a free cup of tea to Martha, who claims to be a penniless lawyer. What follows is love carpet-bombing — Martha sends over 41,000 emails, leaves hundreds of voice messages, and sits for hours outside her “baby reindeer’s” home.
This is a more nuanced account of stalking than Fatal Attraction’s binary of aggressor and victim. “There was just something so awful yet thrilling about doing something that would devastate my life even further,” says Donny before unveiling his complicity. Gadd’s drama is a meditation not just on the complex impact of abuse but the self-lacerating cost of chasing success in the entertainment industry. Martha is only part of the story: its bleak heart also explores the grooming and sexual violence perpetrated on Donny by an influential male media executive.
Born in Fife, Scotland, Gadd’s first interest was in acting, sparked by teachers he described as “inspirational, . . . [they] went above and beyond”. At 15, he was cast in the title role of Macbeth, a performance praised in his school newsletter as “wonderfully physical” — something that still defines his work.
His parents encouraged him to do a degree, and it was at Glasgow University that he discovered a love for comedy. “It’s the most life and death art form,” he once said. “The arrogance of it, going on stage, saying ‘I’m worth your time.’ Not only that but ‘I’ll make you laugh’…. It’s a very unhealthy art form . . . I dread it but then I’m addicted to the thrill. And when it’s done, I want to do it again.”
Unlike his comedic alter-ego Donny, Gadd enjoyed steady success, including television writing for the hit show Sex Education and acting gigs in TV series Tripped and Clique. In 2013, his hour-long routine “Cheese and Crack Whores” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was described as “hyper-neurotic black comedy”. It was followed by Breaking Gadd (2014) and Waiting for Gaddot (2015), a multimedia show in which he did not physically appear until the end.
In 2016, Gadd won the Edinburgh Comedy Award — considered the industry’s Oscar’s — for Monkey See Monkey Do, in which he explored his sexual assault and subsequent conflict over masculinity and sexuality, while running on a treadmill. It went on to tour the country.
Baby Reindeer followed. “Richard has an incredible work ethic and would turn around rewrites incredibly quickly,” says Jon Brittain, the stage show’s director. “The big challenge with the piece was how to tell this story in a way that drew the audience in and put them in [his] shoes — make them complicit in his decisions, create the same sense of paranoia . . . ”
Gadd’s work is part of a recent wave by comedians, including Nanette creator Hannah Gadsby and Feel Good creator Mae Martin, who grapple with traumatic personal stories that have veered into theatre. Gadd has pushed back on the need to categorise work into genres. “I don’t know why we’ve come to think that comedy has to be all about gag rate,” he once said.
Revisiting traumatic experiences poses psychological risks. Jessica Gunning, who plays Martha in the Netflix drama, tells the FT that such a personal show was “challenging and potentially triggering”. She saw the stage shows as “a trial run” for Gadd to “work through a lot of what happened to him in the past”. She added: “It felt like he was able to separate himself in his portrayal of Donny. He’s a really subtle actor . . . and I really felt like he was Donny when we were doing our scenes together.”
From the beginning, there was fierce speculation about the identities of those involved. “People were coming out of the show and trying to Google headlines,” says one comedy promoter. However, the success of the series on Netflix saw this investigation erupt at a different magnitude, as the show came to the attention of a whole new audience.
For Gadd, at least, this attention has, for the most part, proved positive. The BBC recently commissioned Lions, a six-part drama created and written by him, about two brothers. “I just want to make it out alive”, he once said of his Baby Reindeer stage performance. “Little did I know that it would provide a lifeline for me . . . It saved my life. It’s mad that it happened that way.”
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