Richard Gadd’s Half Man pushes the BBC to its violence limits but will it ever match HBO’s extremes?

This article contains references to sexual violence that some readers may find distressing.

In the opening moments of Richard Gadd's new series Half Man, his character Ruben punches Jamie Bell's character Niall in the face so hard that his head cracks on the wall behind him.

This sequence, and what follows its chronologically, has been described in the show's synopsis as an "explosion of violence" which takes place at Niall's wedding, 30 years after the moment the series subsequently flashes back to.

It's a brutal example of what is to come, in a series which contains a handful of pretty graphic, violent moments. For anyone who has read up about the series, it should come as no surprise – it has been described as a show which explores "brotherhood, violence, and the intense fragility of male relationships", as it charts Ruben and Niall's friendship over the years.

It will also come of no surprise to viewers watching in the US or elsewhere around the world, who will be finding the series on HBO. It is, after all, a BBC and HBO co-production.

Alongside its reputation for high-end, prestige drama, HBO is also known for the inclusion in many of its series of graphic content. A prime example of this would be Game of Thrones, the company's acclaimed (up to a point) fantasy series which included scenes of beheadings, pregnant women being stabbed in the stomach and a man having his eyes gouged out and his dead crushed.

Given all of this, my surprise coming into Half Man was not how violent it was, but in many ways how restrained it felt on this front. There is certainly violent, sometimes gory content, but it never once shocked me and always felt dramatically justified. The shocks came in the content of the story, not the graphic visuals.

On the back of this reaction, a question arose in my mind – could and would the BBC ever go full HBO? As the two companies collaborate more and more, including on the sex scene-filled Industry, could a BBC show ever reach the levels of violence seen in shows like The Sopranos or Westworld, or non-HBO shows like Prime Video's The Boys, AMC's The Walking Dead, or Netflix's recent addition, Detective Hole?

To get his thoughts, and learn more about the BBC's history when it comes to on-screen violence, I spoke with Spencer Murphy, Assistant Professor in Media and Communications at Coventry University.

Murphy noted that the BBC has "a really interesting history in terms of its relationship with violent content", before clarifying that this regards "what the viewers perceive to be as violent content".

This is a crucial point. An Ofcom study in 2023 found that audiences' attitudes to on screen violence had changed over time, with viewers feeling that violence shown on post-watershed shows, airing after 9pm, "was widely regarded as the norm".

It was also deemed to have become "more graphic, intense, and realistic", although this wasn't necessarily seen as a negative – participants in the study said that violence in dramas added a "greater degree of realism or excitement", could make "dramatic content more immersive and intense" and felt "more honest than the more staged portrayals in the past".

These changes were deemed to be reflective of changes in society and audiences’ tastes.

Murphy noted that historically, in part due to its status as a public service broadcaster, the BBC has actually been "no stranger to pushing the envelope and pushing the boundaries" of audience expectations in this arena.

He said: "Many years before The Boys or HBO shows, the BBC were offering really provocative programmes, which not just depicted violence for the sake of violence, but they reflected the time and the attitude and questioned things.

"Going back even into fantasy, back into the 1950s you've got shows like Quatermass, which provoked a lot of complaint at the time. Even the flagship BBC programme of Doctor Who produced huge public outcry, which we might look back on now as kind of quaint. But the idea of Daleks going around exterminating people at 6pm on a Saturday was quite problematic.

"When I think about Half Man, the thing that strikes me as a kind of historical counterpoint to that was The Wednesday Play in the '60s, which was a series of short dramas that were put on every Wednesday. There was one called Cathy Come Home, and another called Up the Junction, which were incredibly violent for its time. We have to remember, contextually, they were violent.

"They were dealing with trauma, homelessness, abortion, domestic abuse. And it caused a lot of complaint at the time, but what it demonstrates was the BBCs commitment to pushing boundaries, pushing the audience, but also moving with the times, trying to show things and represent things and challenge their audience. And I think it’s carried on."

Murphy also pointed to the 1984 apocalyptic anti-war drama Threads, which was first broadcast on BBC Two, and depicted the concept of a nuclear winter taking place in the UK. It is still known as a particularly haunting, harrowing piece of work.

Jumping forward to the present day, Murphy references shows like Peaky Blinders and Luther as more modern examples of violence in BBC dramas. However, it has to be acknowledged that, at least in what is actually seen on screen, these are far less graphic than shows like Game of Thrones or The Boys.

"The real issue, when you think about where this new show is sitting, is a broader, bigger issue around the position of the BBC in the age of streaming," Murphy said. "In these shows that we think about, HBO’s The Wire and things like Game of Thrones, the violence depicted in these is for a very different audience now, and it's contextual.

"The question with these shows is, why is the violence there? And what is it trying to accomplish?"

This is a question which was clearly on Gadd's mind throughout the production of Half Man – as well as on minds of those around him.

As he was speaking to us for our video interview series The Radio Times Writers' Room, I asked Gadd whether the level of violence seen on screen was a discussion with the BBC, given the fact that its audience are perhaps less expectant of it than those tuning into HBO.

"Well, everything was a discussion," he said. "Everything in television is a sort of discussion all the time. And we talked at length about the violence in the show."

He continued: "The thing with the violence in Half Man is it's never, in my opinion, frivolous or there for violence sake. In order to explore a show about male violence, to pull punches on violence would be quite a bizarre thing to do. To experience the extent of a character like Ruben, you have to see the extent of what he's capable of, otherwise we're just told.

"We're just told that this guy is really violent, but I don't see it, the whole show would have failed as a result of that. And I feel that very strongly."

He's right. For my money, Half Man is an exceptionally powerful show, the best I've seen so far in 2026, and it's been a year of strong contenders. This is in part due to its exploration of violence, which I agree, would have been damped or felt less egregious were we not to see it and its ramifications.

"I think the mistake that people make in television and film with violence is when it's just there purely for gratuitous sake, and it's part of grossing people out, or it's there to add style or just get people talking," Gadd said. "You can feel it emanating from the screen, sometimes, when people use violence superfluously.

"But every single time there was a piece of violence in the show that was extreme, I always asked myself, and the discussion was always, ‘Is it important for the character? Is it important for the story moving forward?’ And every single time I felt like it was."

The idea of the violence being "important" or justified is a key one – in fact, it's crucial to the entire mission of the BBC.

As a state-funded public broadcaster, the BBC has a constitutional basis in a Royal Charter, and has an agreement regarding its activities with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Charter states that the "Mission of the BBC is to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain."

It also says that "the BBC must carefully and appropriately assess the views and interests of the public and audiences, including licence fee payers, across the whole of the United Kingdom".

Meanwhile, the agreement says that "the BBC must protect audiences from offensive and harmful material unless it has sufficient editorial purpose," before noting that "content that is potentially highly offensive will need the strongest editorial justification".

"The BBC must balance its right to freedom of expression, which allows it to publish innovative and challenging content, with the responsibility of avoiding unjustifiable offence," it says. "Content makers should take account of 'generally accepted standards' as well as audience expectations when considering publishing potentially offensive or harmful material.

"The publication or broadcast of such content must be justified by the context. Potentially offensive content includes strong language, violence, sex, sexual violence, humiliation, distress, violation of human dignity, and discriminatory treatment or language."

Without spoiling anything for viewers, Half Man does have specific subjects its exploring, even beyond those which have been confirmed. It does this both in terms of the specific characters of Ruben and Niall, but also in a wider, societal sense. The violence is pivotal to that exploration.

"It goes back to the role and status of the BBC as a public service broadcaster," Murphy says. "It has a charter. It has its purpose, it has its relationship with not just the British public but globally. It has a responsibility, which I don't think Amazon Prime, for example, does. It does not have that heritage.

"And also, these platforms have enormous swathes of content every single week, loads and loads and loads. The BBC will defend, as it always has, all these shows over the decades that have received huge kinds of moral outrage. The BBC defended those things, and rightly so. It will not do things or show things without a very clear editorial justification for it."

This then brings us back to HBO, Netflix, Prime Video and other platforms, which are not governed by such regulations. Is the way they present violence justified?

Back in 2016, Casey Bloys, now chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, was asked by journalists specifically about the sexual violence against women, which was depicted in shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld.

"I don’t necessarily see it as specific to women," he answered. "The point of is there a lot of violence in Westworld and Game of Thrones? Yes, but I don’t necessarily think that it’s specifically isolated to women. No, you haven’t seen men being raped.

"But the point I would make in Game of Thrones for example is men are castrated, a guy is fed a cake made of his sons. The violence is pretty extreme on all fronts. I take your point that so far there have not been any male rapes, but my point is the violence is spread equally."

The response was criticised at the time as to its justification in particular of sexual violence against women, but for the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't appear as though he is at all fazed by the levels of violence more generally in the series. In many ways, that is a selling point.

Of course, that's not to say he should be, or that it isn't. In Ofcom's study, a change was noted by participants that there is "more intense and graphic violence found in some drama programmes" today, which was "seen to be driven by increased competition from channels like Sky Atlantic, in particular the HBO content shown on that channel, and subscription services such as Netflix".

This wasn't necessarily seen as a bad thing. As noted before, HBO has a reputation not only for its level of violence, grit and edge, but also as a home for prestige, premium dramas – even if the storytelling is key, those things can't fully be divorced.

Editorial justification can also take many forms. One is of course a piece's societal benefits and its exploration of topical discussions, but another could be its willingness to challenge taboos, or simply its own comprehensiveness as a work of art.

Murphy says he watches and enjoys The Boys himself, which is extremely graphic, but notes the key difference between its presentation of violence, and how it would be utilised in a BBC show.

"Their whole marketing angle is around how far they can push the boundary in terms of violence. Sometimes, some of the shows – Game of Thrones was very guilty of this – have these almost like TikTok moments, moments in the show that are hyped up because of their levels of violence. Where it seems to be there in order for it to generate traction on social media.

"Perhaps people are worried, looking at a show like Half Man, that the BBC is going to slip into making the kind of content that other streaming platforms make. Maybe I'm looking at the BBC through rose tinted glasses, but I just cannot see the BBC joining that.

"When I look at Half Man, I don't look at that as something that the BBC have commissioned because it's violent. Clearly, it's going to address themes surrounding toxic masculinity."

Still, it's notable how those who have seen Half Man, and even those who haven't have already reacted to it. It has received wildly mixed reviews, with a number of critics giving it five stars, while others have given it two.

The Telegraph's review calls the show "just cruel and violent", while even The Guardian's five-star review says the show brings you "violence so vivid, you’ll think you can taste blood in your mouth".

Decider says: "After a certain point, the series also resorts to violence in a way that feels gratuitous and dreadful, making it difficult to watch at times."

It appears that the BBC was prepared for this. The show's release schedule is notable. Each episode is being released weekly on a Friday, at 6am on BBC iPlayer - that's nothing new, The Capture just followed the same pattern with its third season on Sundays.

Instead, though Half Man is following a release pattern more closely aligned with Industry, another HBO co-production, and one which has been remarked upon for its provocative sexual content (and even led to some interesting edits). That show released at 6am on BBC iPlayer on Mondays, before airing later that night as late as 10:40pm.

Half Man's BBC One release will take place the Tuesday after each Friday release, once again at 10:40pm. Could this be intended so that audiences don't happen upon the series and find themselves offended? To be watching it at that time, or to watch it on iPlayer, you would in many ways have to have sought it out.

Of course, this is almost always the case with streaming-only programming – it's something Ofcom found audiences have clear views on in their study.

"Based on their experiences, many felt that SVoD [streaming video on demand] services also offered edgier content, pointing to examples of more graphic programmes (e.g. containing sex and violence) they could access and the themes addressed," it said.

"Participants who mentioned this point of difference generally liked it, as they felt SVoDs gave them access to a greater variety of shows, some of which they felt were more appealing than they might find on linear TV."

Participants in the survey felt that British content "tended to be more restrained in pushing boundaries, whereas other countries may be more liberal and open to violence, nudity and other adult themes".

One participant said: "With British platforms, we have more of a polite background. The stuff we put out is more PC and more filtered. When you go to Netflix, you get more grit and less filtered content."

However, the participants did note that "SVoDs can push boundaries further, given the fact viewers need to seek out content to watch".

"They started linking it with their experiences of content information (e.g. warnings, ratings, classifications) being more prominent on SVoDs compared to linear TV, and more robust access tools being in place (e.g. PINs, child profiles)," the study said.

"These features of SVoDs were seen as enabling greater viewer autonomy in deciding what they want to watch compared to linear. On linear TV, content information and warnings were considered less effective, as someone could accidentally stumble across content if they switched channels and started something part way through."

Murphy says that, if the BBC One air time is intended to make sure people don't stumble upon Half Man unexpectedly, then it's "a sensible strategy".

"It’s almost that idea of the magic line, the watershed, post 9pm moment on the BBC, when audiences will tolerate more morally serious, realistic material.

"But then therefore, how is that material presented on when you open up the app, for example?," he says of the show being on iPlayer. "Is it there front and centre? I think it's something that all streamers, including the BBC, need to think about.

"I've got a young son, he's only 11 years old. If we switch on Amazon Prime and the first thing that comes up is The Boys, which to his eyes just looks like a superhero show…

"They all have these different profiles for adults and children, they're thinking about it at least. But it is something which I think all streamers, and certainly the BBC have got to really think about. How is this material presented to its audience?"

While these questions may linger, Murphy argues that while the BBC should never, and likely will never go in for the greatest excesses of on-screen violence, given that it is unlikely to ever be editorially warranted, at least from a social standpoint, the corporation shouldn't be deterred from making series that "really push and challenge the audience".

"That, to me, is at the heart of what public service broadcasting is all about," he says. "It's not just giving the audience natural history programmes and such things. It's about challenging the audience as well, asking questions that are relevant to that society.

"When I approach shows such as Half Man, I want to watch it, ironically, because it is the BBC. I don't think I'd be as interested in it if it was on just HBO Max. I'm really interested in that show because it has that editorial – not stamp of approval – but it has the context of the BBC.

"I believe that this is going to be something that has something to say, or at least is making the audience reflect and think. Which I think, when it comes to a lot of material we watch, particularly on streamers, so little of it seems to do that."

Half Man will arrive on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Friday 24 April.

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