New Peaky Blinders lead star features in first-look trailer for Baby Reindeer creator's gritty new BBC drama

Ahead of its release on BBC One and iPlayer later this month, a first-look trailer has been unveiled for Half Man, Richard Gadd's highly anticipated new drama.

The series, Gadd's first to release after the monster success of Baby Reindeer, stars Gadd alongside Jamie Bell, who was recently announced as the lead for the upcoming Peaky Blinders sequel series.

The trailer introduces us to Bell's Niall and Gadd's Ruben, two boys who are brought into each other's lives through death and circumstance and become brothers, despite their differences. As seen in the trailer, Ruben is violent and unpredictable, while Niall is meek and mild-mannered.

While we see Ruben and Niall earlier on in their lives, played by Stuart Campbell and Mitchell Robertson respectively, we also see them at Niall's wedding, where Ruben turns up unexpectedly, and we're told by the show's synopsis that an "explosion of violence takes place".

With emotions running high throughout the trailer and plenty of violence already on display, it looks set to be quite the rollercoaster of a series.

You can watch the trailer in full right here now.

Episodes of Half Man will be released weekly from April 24 at 6am on BBC iPlayer, with BBC One and BBC Scotland transmissions following within the week. Meanwhile, the series, which is a co-production with HBO, will also air on HBO Max in the US, Latin America and Europe.

The synopsis for the series teases that it captures "30 years in the lives of these broken men" and that it "explores brotherhood, violence, and the intense fragility of male relationships".

The cast for the series also includes Neve McIntosh (Doctor Who), Marianne McIvor (The Bombing of Pan Am 103), Charlie De Melo (Rivals), Bilal Hasna (The Agency), Julie Cullen (Traces), Amy Manson (The Nevers) and Anjli Mohindra (The Lazarus Project), among others.

Half Man will arrive on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Friday 24 April 2026.

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