| Baby Reindeer | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster | |
| Genre | |
| Created by | Richard Gadd |
| Based on | Baby Reindeer by Richard Gadd |
| Written by | Richard Gadd |
| Directed by | |
| Starring |
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| Music by |
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| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 7 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Producer | Matthew Mulot |
| Production locations |
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| Running time | 27–45 minutes |
| Production company | Clerkenwell Films |
| Original release | |
| Network | Netflix |
| Release | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) |
Baby Reindeer is a British black comedy-drama thriller television miniseries created by and starring Richard Gadd. It is adapted from his autobiographical one-man show. Directed by Weronika Tofilska and Josephine Bornebusch, it also stars Jessica Gunning, Nava Mau, and Tom Goodman-Hill. The miniseries was released on 11 April 2024 on Netflix, where it had a strong viewership and received critical acclaim.
Baby Reindeer was nominated for 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning six, including: Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Outstanding Writing for Gadd, Outstanding Lead Actor for Gadd, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Gunning.
Plot
Aspiring comedian Donny Dunn works as a bartender in a London pub. He offers a cup of tea to a customer, Martha, to cheer her up. Martha develops an attachment to Donny and begins to stalk him both in person and online. Years earlier, Donny is being mentored by TV writer Darrien O'Connor, who supplies him with drugs. The latter repeatedly sexually assaults and rapes Donny during drug-induced blackouts, until they break off contact.
In the present, Donny reports Martha to the police for stalking, violence, and threatening his parents. She is arrested and serves nine months in prison. Darrien and Donny meet again. Darrien suggests a renewal of their collaboration. Donny reluctantly agrees.
Cast and characters
Main
- Richard Gadd as Donny Dunn, a character based upon Gadd
- Jessica Gunning as Martha Scott, a former lawyer with a criminal past
- Nava Mau as Teresa "Teri", a transgender American therapist Donny meets on a dating site
- Tom Goodman-Hill as Darrien O'Connor, a television writer
Recurring
- Nina Sosanya as Liz, Keeley's mother and Donny's landlady
- Michael Wildman as Greggsy, owner of the pub Donny works in
- Danny Kirrane as Gino, Donny's co-worker
- Thomas Coombes as Officer Daniels, an incompetent police officer
- Shalom Brune-Franklin as Keeley, Donny's ex-girlfriend
Guest
- Tom Durant Pritchard as Jason, host of a comedy competition
- Laura Smyth as Glenda, M.C. of the comedy competition
- Will Hislop as Billy, a fellow comedian
- Amanda Root as Elle, Donny's mother
- Mark Lewis Jones as Gerry, Donny's father
- Hugh Coles as Francis, Donny's friend from drama school
- Josh Finan as Diggsy, a new employee at the pub
- Alexandria Riley as Detective Culver, the detective assigned to Donny's case
Episodes
All seven episodes were simultaneously released on Netflix on 11 April 2024.
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Episode 1" | Weronika Tofilska | Richard Gadd | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) | |
| In 2015, while working at a pub in London, struggling comedian Donny Dunn gives a free cup of tea to a distraught customer. The customer, Martha Scott, becomes a regular, claiming she is a wealthy lawyer and entertaining Donny with stories. She becomes increasingly flirtatious, calling him "Baby Reindeer" and other nicknames. She begins emailing him hundreds of times a day, making him uncomfortable. He reluctantly takes her for coffee but is disturbed when Martha has a public outburst. He follows her home, discovering she lives in a cluttered apartment on a council estate, and flees after she notices him. Martha views this as a development in their relationship. She shows up uninvited to Donny's performance at a local comedy competition, and her interruptions help him secure a position in the semi-finals. She confesses her love to Donny, has another outburst when he tries to reject her politely, and sends him a friend request on Facebook. Donny discovers that she is a convicted stalker. He nevertheless accepts her friend request. | |||||
| 2 | "Episode 2" | Weronika Tofilska | Richard Gadd | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) | |
| Donny has secretly been dating Teri, a transgender American therapist. Despite seeking out a trans partner, Donny is ashamed of his feelings and has told Teri he is a builder named Tony. Martha's stalking intensifies. She leaves comments on every photo on Donny's Facebook profile and jealously sends harassing messages to his ex-girlfriend Keeley, whose mother, Liz, is Donny's landlady. Martha also begins to follow him home after his shifts at the pub. Teri encourages Donny to go to the police, but he refuses, believing Martha is harmless. He attempts to get his co-workers to ban her from the pub, but one of them sends her a reply from Donny's account asking for anal sex as a joke, leading her to believe he returns her feelings. Donny has a successful date with Teri while high on cocaine, but when Teri asks Donny to kiss her in public, he panics and abandons her on the Underground. As he walks home, Martha follows him, pushes him against a wall, and gropes his crotch. | |||||
| 3 | "Episode 3" | Weronika Tofilska | Richard Gadd | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) | |
| Donny confesses his actions and real name to Teri, who angrily asks him to leave. Martha befriends Liz under a false name, leaving a scantily clad photo of herself in Donny's bedroom. Donny threatens her with the police, and she disappears from his home and work, only to appear as a permanent fixture at a bus stop across from his home. Donny becomes sympathetic to Martha as she lapses into a fugue state but asks her to leave him alone, framing it as a breakup in an attempt to give her closure. Martha's contact with Donny briefly ceases. Teri attends the comedy semi-finals, interested in giving Donny a second chance. His performance is interrupted when Martha begins heckling him from the audience, escalating to a violent rage when he mocks her from the stage. She is thrown out but later tries to break into his dressing room before pursuing him and Teri. Donny and Teri agree to resume their relationship. Their date is interrupted when an enraged Martha spews a barrage of xenophobic and transphobic insults and assaults Teri, pulling out a chunk of her hair. | |||||
| 4 | "Episode 4" | Weronika Tofilska | Richard Gadd | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) | |
| Six months later, Donny attempts to report Martha to the police. When the officer asks him why it took him so long to report her, he flashes back to a few years earlier. As a young comedian in Edinburgh, he has a chance encounter with Darrien, the writer of a successful television show, who has worked with Donny's comedy idols. Darrien mentors him and encourages him to move to London before suddenly disappearing from his life. Donny moves to Oxford and attends drama school, where he meets and moves in with Keeley. He receives a call from Darrien and begins writing a television pilot under his guidance. Not realising Darrien is grooming him, Donny regularly spends weekend-long "working sessions" at Darrien's apartment. Darrien encourages Donny to do drugs and sexually assaults him while he is high. Eventually, Darrien rapes Donny while he is on LSD and GHB. Donny finally leaves Darrien, but his relationship with Keeley deteriorates. Feeling confused and angry, Donny subjects himself to reckless sexual encounters with multiple partners of all genders. In the present, due to his guilt over Darrien's assault and never reporting him, Donny fails to give the police an accurate report of Martha's stalking. | |||||
| 5 | "Episode 5" | Josephine Bornebusch | Richard Gadd | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) | |
| Martha is banned from Donny's pub after causing a scene while he works. After she assaults Keeley on the street, Liz asks Donny to move out. He moves into a flat with friends from drama school but is dismayed to learn that they spend every night throwing drug-fuelled parties. He spends increasing time with Teri, hiding in her flat and coming out to her as bisexual for the first time. Their relationship begins to suffer due to her trauma over Martha's attack and his inability to maintain an erection, caused by his trauma from Martha and Darrien. Teri convinces him to report Martha again. At the station, he finally gets an officer to look up Martha. After realising she has prior convictions, the police take the case seriously. Martha complies with the police and ceases contact with Donny. However, he finds himself obsessing over her, masturbating to a picture of her and imagining himself having sex with her. This helps him successfully have sex with Teri, and their relationship improves. His mother leaves a frantic voicemail, having been told by Martha that Donny is in a hospital after an accident. | |||||
| 6 | "Episode 6" | Josephine Bornebusch | Richard Gadd | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) | |
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Donny is horrified to realise Martha has begun harassing his parents and has accused his father of being a paedophile, getting him in trouble at work. After the police are unhelpful, Donny tries to entrap Martha into violating no-contact. However, Martha has been recording all their interactions, and he is cautioned by the police. As a result, Teri breaks up with him. The day before Donny is set to perform in the comedy competition finals, Martha returns to Donny's pub to harass him. When he brings up her previous stalking charges, she attacks him, smashing a glass into his face. His co-workers convince Donny not to press charges, which would reveal their mismanagement of the pub, and he complies. At the competition, Donny gives up on his act after a joke does not land and instead breaks down on stage, confessing to the audience in frank detail his guilt, shame, and self-hatred after his rape, stalking, and his poor management of his relationship with Teri, before walking out of the theatre. The episode is dedicated to the memory of Llewellyn Harrison, who worked as a key grip on Baby Reindeer. | |||||
| 7 | "Episode 7" | Josephine Bornebusch | Richard Gadd | 11 April 2024 (2024-04-11) | |
| A video of Donny's confession goes viral, significantly boosting his career. Martha finds his phone number and leaves him hundreds of voicemails. When she threatens to tell his parents about his rape and sexuality, he travels to Fife, Scotland, and tells his parents everything. His father reveals that, growing up in the Catholic Church, he too was sexually abused. After Martha leaves a voicemail threatening to stab his parents, he finally reports her. Martha is sentenced to nine months in prison and five years of probation. Donny quits comedy and, at Keeley's urging, moves back into Liz's house. Upon finding the screenplay he was writing for Darrien, Donny visits Darrien but fails to confront him. Darrien, having seen Donny's video, offers him a writing job. Donny accepts but has a panic attack afterwards. Stopping at a pub, he listens to a voicemail where Martha explains that she calls him "Baby Reindeer" because he reminds her of a stuffed animal she would hug when her parents fought during her childhood. Donny breaks down in tears and orders a drink but realises he has forgotten his wallet. Sympathetic, the barman gives Donny the drink for free, mirroring his first encounter with Martha. | |||||
Production
Development and casting
The series was announced in December 2020, with Richard Gadd set to write the series and star. Clerkenwell Films was set to produce. Weronika Tofilska was added as the director in August 2022, with Josephine Bornebusch announced as an additional director in March 2023. Richard Gadd was cast alongside the series announcement. Jessica Gunning was cast on 26 August 2022. Nava Mau was announced as a cast member in March 2023.
Filming
Filming began in mid-August 2022 in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, and continued in London in September.
Among the filming locations in London were the Stag's Head pub in Hoxton, which was used for exterior scenes at the Heart pub, the Regent's Canal in Haggerston, and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Donny's stand-up comedy shows were filmed at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, the Rivoli Ballroom in Brockley and The Comedy Store in Leicester Square. Darrien's apartment was filmed inside Marsham Court in Victoria. In Edinburgh, the Hoppy pub in Meadowbank, Edinburgh served as the exterior of the Festival Fringe venue for Donny's comedy show (interior scenes were filmed in the Army & Navy pub in Stoke Newington, London). Other exterior locations are the Royal Mile and the Grassmarket, where Donny is shown walking along the street amid festival activities.
Filming wrapped by early March 2023.
Reception
Critical response
The series received critical acclaim. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 58 critics gave the series a positive review, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "A bracing work of autofiction by creator and star Richard Gadd, Baby Reindeer can be a punishing watch but richly rewards viewers with its emotional complexity and excellent performances." On Metacritic, the series holds a weighted average score of 88 out of 100 based on 17 critics.
Audience viewership
Baby Reindeer debuted at number five on Netflix's Top 10 TV English titles for the tracking week of 8–14 April 2024, with 10.4 million hours viewed. On the following week, it climbed to number one and garnered 52.8 million viewing hours. The series remained at the same position for its third and fourth weeks, earning 87.4 and 73.6 million viewing hours.
Awards and nominations
Basis in fact
Fans began to speculate on social media about possible people who inspired the show's fictional characters. Gadd asked fans to stop any kind of speculation in an April 2024 statement. After being falsely identified online as the factual person from whom the character Darrien was derived, theatre director Sean Foley reported the false allegations to the police. The police investigated the reports. Gadd confirmed that Foley was not his source of the character.
On 9 May 2024, in an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, 59-year-old Fiona Muir-Harvey, a Scottish woman with a law degree, claimed to have inspired the Martha character. Earlier tweets from an account linked to Muir-Harvey resulted in increased fan connections between her and the Martha character. These included a reference to hanging curtains, a sexually suggestive phrase that was later used in the script of Baby Reindeer.
During her Uncensored interview, Harvey said that she had met Gadd several times at The Hawley Arms, Camden, but denied sending him 41,000 emails or going to his home, as was stated of her erstwhile character on the show. She said that she was planning to start legal action for defamation against both Gadd and Netflix for claiming the series is "a true story" and suggesting that she had been convicted of stalking and sexual assault, as is the Martha character in the series.
Harvey said she had sent up to 10 emails and a letter, as well as several tweets, to Gadd. She later claimed she was paid £250 to appear, and said that the interview left her feeling "a bit used". The interview drew some criticism, with people questioning the ethics of the event.
Laura Wray, a lawyer and widow of Scottish politician Jimmy Wray, said that she had briefly employed Harvey at her law firm in 1997. After Harvey was dismissed, she made abusive social media posts directed at Wray.
On 6 June, Harvey filed a suit against Netflix in the United States, for defamation, seeking $170 million in damages, claiming that the show has "viciously destroyed" her.
On 27 September, U.S. Judge Gary Klausner dismissed Harvey's negligence and gross negligence claims, along with her request for punitive damages. He allowed her to continue the defamation case against Netflix, noting that Netflix had misrepresented the show as a "true story", and failed to verify Gadd's claims as asserted in the script or to disguise Harvey's identity.
Notes
- Multiple references:
References
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External links
| Netflix original ended series and miniseries (2019–present) | |
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| First released 2019 |
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| First released 2020 |
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| First released 2021 |
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| First released 2022 |
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| First released 2023 |
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| First released 2024 |
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- 2020s British black comedy television series
- 2020s British LGBTQ-related drama television series
- 2020s British television miniseries
- 2024 British television series debuts
- 2024 British television series endings
- Bisexuality-related television series
- British thriller television series
- Netflix television dramas
- Psychological thriller television series
- Television series about comedians
- Television series based on actual events
- Television series based on plays
- Television series by Clerkenwell Films
- Television series set in 2015
- Television series set in 2016
- Television series set in 2017
- Television shows about rape
- Television shows filmed in Scotland
- Television shows set in London
- Television shows set in Scotland
- Television shows shot in London
- Transgender-related television shows
- Works about stalking
- Works involved in defamation lawsuits
- 2024 LGBTQ-related television