The trailer for Half Man dropped on Tuesday, putting Richard Gadd back at the center of a new -HBO drama that starts on April 23. He stars as Ruben, opposite Jamie Bell as Niall, in a story that moves from a wedding-day shock into decades of brotherhood, friendship and violence.
When Ruben turns up at Niall’s wedding, everything seems different, and the series quickly turns to an explosion of violence before rewinding through their lives from the 1980s to the present day. Mitchell Robertson plays young Niall, Stuart Campbell plays young Ruben, Neve McIntosh plays Niall’s mother Lori and Marianne McIvor plays Ruben’s mother Maura.
The series will arrive on HBO on April 23 and follow on the the next day. That rollout gives the drama a clear launch pad after Gadd turned into one of television’s most closely watched names with Baby Reindeer, and Half Man carries the same pressure to land as both a family saga and a violent character study. Gadd created, wrote and executive produced the show, with Alexandra Brodski and Eshref Reybrouck directing and production coming from Banijay-backed Mam Tor in association with Thistledown Pictures.
That setup also explains the series’ biggest risk: it is built on a broad emotional canvas, but the trailer points to a story driven by one brutal interruption. If the wedding scene hooks viewers, the question is whether the decades-old conflict around Ruben and Niall can sustain the same force across the full run when the show premieres later this month.
