Half Man - The Whole Story?

Half Man is a new six-part television drama series production for BBC and HBO.

It takes on the subject of masculinity through the relationship of two stepbrothers, played as adults by the show’s writer Richard Gadd, and Jamie Bell, perhaps still best known for his starring child role in the film Billy Elliott. Gadd’s widely celebrated and award-lavished Netflix breakthrough, Baby Reindeer, focused on the complicated relationship between a female stalker and her confused male subject, also played by Gadd. Obsession and emotional extremes could connect the two shows. Baby Reindeer was also blurred with real-life controversy and legal challenge, whereas there’s none of that in the new show, as far as I understand. Half Man takes us on through the stepbrother’s relationship from 1990s’ adolescence (where they’re played by different, younger actors) through violent rocky waters to middle-age. Of course the stepbrothers are both terrified in their own ways, confused and damaged by their early life experiences, emerging into adulthood with different survival mechanisms. Through the two opposite characters, the series asks what is it to be a full man, or a half man. Is it to be truly possessed of ourselves, our testosterone, our charismatic sexuality, our physical potential for violence in the face of threat? (Gadd). Or to be more understandably nervous, confused, overwhelmed by traditional demands? (Bell). This is a continuing public dialogue reflected in arts and culture through Netflix shows like last year’s Adolescence, and Louis Theroux’s documentary effort ‘Inside The Manosphere’. Next week sees a BBC documentary release of former England football manager Gareth Southgate, as he attempts to engage with the subject once more. Male identity through trauma have been themes in recent theatre productions I’ve reviewed for a local website. There’s something in the power of art or sport in trying to address and process the confusion. It’s never not an issue, but the breakneck (multiple meanings available) modern world of smartphones and social media has given it a whole new dimension, amplifying and simplifying everything through power and control, superiority and inferiority, correctness and incorrectness. How far do we personally accept traditional identities of gender and sexuality? How far do we adapt or resist them? Might it be safer to even reject them entirely? There are clear themes in Gadd’s work. Complicated relationships with a desperate lack of boundaries; the resulting chaos, confusion, and poor mental health. This appears to be where Gadd concentrates his energies. And he does it with a true crackling menace in Half Man, to a point. There is a tension and ebb and flow of power and control between the two stepbrothers, and between their gay, ageing, battle-weary mothers. Sexuality, fluidity, fertility, threat, aggression, insecurity, and wanton uncontrolled violence: all are hurled into the mix. Half Man worked best for me when skewering and amplifying confusion and self doubt, when it almost felt improvised. (I don’t know if it was). Gadd’s physicality and his character’s personality is entirely amplified, almost to a point of surreality. He is towering, gladiatorial, muscular. Gadd takes his central characters to unapologetic extremes with a swaggering ambition that should be applauded. But across the whole six episode piece, the writing and acting felt inconsistent, with a number of scenes heavily stagey, thuddingly wooden, and sort of pointless. There are about two or three subplots too many and it all felt baggier as it went on. To me it felt like a labour to finally reach the end. An often sketchy connection with real world plausibility lends it a near magic realist quality, much like Baby Reindeer. Which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. A key moment where it didn’t quite work for me, came at the climax, which the six episodes build directly towards using an overarching framing device. It felt like it had played itself into a box it couldn’t elegantly solve, leading to a lack of direction or control and a somewhat unsatisfying ending, a grunt from Gadd’s character almost directly challenging us as viewers. 'Well, what did you expect, you softies', the grunt seemed to say. I’m not sure exactly, but perhaps something a little more.