Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd says new series is proudly Scottish

Gadd is back in Glasgow to film Half Man, his new BBC series that, Gadd says, picks up thematically where Baby Reindeer left off, in the mire of troubled human relationships, in this case between two brothers, played by Gadd and former Billy Elliot star Jamie Bell.

Half Man is based in Scotland – is it specifically a Scottish work, something that represents a return to Gadd’s roots? “It’s not a comment on the country,” he says. “It’s not really trying to say anything about Scotland, but I would still say Half Man is a very Scottish piece of work.”

Gadd was brought up in a rural Fife village on the southern bank of the Firth of Tay but has been coming to Glasgow since his university days when he first started doing stand-up. “Even though I’m Scottish born and bred, I don’t really sound as Scottish as your average Scottish person,” he says in that soft but not strongly Caledonian drawl that has become so familiar since he achieved worldwide fame.

“I remember when I started up here the comedy clubs, especially in Glasgow, were full of very Scottish stuff. And there I was in a shirt and tie, doing all this work with props. So, I always felt like my face didn’t quite fit in a lot of ways.”

Was Gadd ever tempted to change his approach, to be more mainstream? “I would love to have woken up one day and all of a sudden I was a mainstream comedian,” he says. “But my own sense of humour, the things that I found funny and the way that my comedy worked, it just wasn’t mainstream.

“But I do take pride in being Scottish, and that there is so much talent up here. There are so many amazing comedians and writers but a lot of them go unnoticed. I think that’s a real shame.”

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Gadd left Fife when he was young, first for university at Glasgow and then down to London and the harrowing experiences that are fictionalised in Baby Reindeer. Ironically part of these experiences of trying to make it as a stand-up involved coming back to Edinburgh to try and crack the Fringe Festival. Did that young comic – some of his stranger routines meeting with silence and bafflement – really believe that he would make it one day?

“There was no knowing, no premonition, no crystal ball,” Gadd says. “But I have an insatiable work ethic. People have always commented on how hard I work, and I think I always have to believe that if I just push, push, push, grind, grind, grind, hustle, hustle, hustle, work, work, work, then something good will eventually come.

“I had this never-say-die attitude and felt that, as long I didn’t quit, then it would be OK somehow.” Even when he was suffering from depression? “I think ambition can be the hand that pulls you out of some of the darkest of times. I think what I’m trying to say is, purpose is very valuable to a person.” And that’s true, wherever you’re from.

Half Man will air on BBC One, BBC Scotland and iPlayer.

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