Richard Gadd Places Half Man on BBC One at 10.40pm

Richard Gadd’s Half Man aired on One at 10.40pm after premiering on iPlayer last week. The move shifts his follow-up to Baby Reindeer from an on-demand debut into a regular broadcast slot.

One at 10.40pm

Gadd created Half Man and appears in it as the adult Ruben. Jamie Bell plays the other adult lead, while Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell take the roles of the two 1980s schoolboys, Niall and Ruben.

The series follows two 1980s schoolboys whose lives become entwined, then tracks the adult versions as they are about to form a toxic lifelong bond. That structure gives the show a wider television run after its iPlayer premiere, which is the practical change for viewers who missed the streaming launch.

Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell

Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell anchor the earlier timeline, with weak Niall and violent Ruben setting the series in motion before the adult storyline takes over. The casting keeps the focus on the same two characters across both eras, so the broadcast slot is not introducing a new property so much as extending one that already began online.

Last week’s iPlayer debut meant the series had already reached streaming viewers before One carried it at 10.40pm. For anyone following Gadd after Baby Reindeer, the broadcast run is the point where the show moves from a platform launch to a wider nightly audience, with the adult bond between Bell’s and Gadd’s characters now the central draw.