Baby Reindeer: Meet the Scottish Comedian Who Turned His Stalker into a Netflix Show

The latest show on Netflix, Baby Reindeer, starts with Martha, who is struggling with her emotions (played by Jessica Gunning), becoming fixated on a man named Donny - a bartender/comedian. Donny's mistake was offering Martha a free drink and some casual compassion, which she clung onto tightly. Martha goes on to stalk and suffocate Donny with over 40,000 emails and hundreds of hours of voice messages. This leads to a deep existential crisis that spans across seven episodes, available for streaming on Thursday.

The intense excitement of the play stems from the talents of Richard Gadd, a Scottish performer who has expertise in writing, acting and comedy. Richard not only conceived the concept, scripted and acted in Baby Reindeer, but this storyline was actually his real-life experience.

During his twenties, a woman persistently followed him, but he is unable to disclose further details due to legal constraints. The ordeal lasted for approximately five years and coincided with a time when Gadd was grappling with the repercussions of experiencing severe sexual abuse. He felt trapped in a cycle of uncontrollable thoughts, questioning how he ended up in such a distressing situation. Coming from a small town in Scotland with only one store, he was bewildered by the sudden onslaught of two significant offenses simultaneously.

He had a strong habit of analyzing things and eventually realized that he was involved in the stalking. He confessed that he found it strange that he had initially entertained the idea. When the actual person, Martha, came into the bar where he worked, he spent his entire shift with her and even joked around. He accepts that during this period of time, his life was not going well, and he was willing to accept any positive attention he could get, without considering the potential outcomes.

He kept his experience of sexual abuse hidden and undisclosed to everyone. This secret caused him immense damage; it ate away at him from inside, causing a sense of helplessness, and led to constant reflection, anger, and hatred towards himself. However, the genuine Martha gave him a different kind of respite- a break from the terrible and disturbing version of himself that he had become. Gadd explains it in the show as, "When someone sees the real you amidst all the chaos, recognizes and acknowledges you for who you are, you inevitably take notice of them. You feel their gaze on you and appreciate them for seeing you as you truly are."

Many movies and TV shows have portrayed stalkers as scary villains, but Baby Reindeer is different. It shows a more gentle view of a stalker. Other movies like Fatal Attraction typically show normal looking people who become sociopathic or psychotic. However, real stalking is a mental illness and not as malicious as it is shown in movies and TV. Gadd saw a lot of humanity in the stalker character.

In the beginning of the Netflix show, Donny admits that when he first laid eyes on Martha, he felt a sense of pity for her, similar to how Gadd felt towards his own stalker. Donny explains that he possesses a trait known as "toxic empathy," in which he frequently feels sorry for others. Sometimes he may not even know the person or their situation, yet still feels compelled to empathize with them. However, when he saw Martha, he immediately recognized that she was in need of assistance and wasn't receiving it.

The Baby Reindeer show was originally created by Gadd around five years ago. He first introduced the hour-long stage performance at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Gadd, who came from Fife, had hopes of being a comedian-writer-actor, inspired by the artists he watched on the original version of The Office. He appreciated how the show had "complexity of character, pathos, and humor". These were elements he accomplished in his own show, which was autobiographical in nature. Baby Reindeer was a wise and deep portrayal of a stalker relationship that was a blend of thriller, dark comedy, and psychological mystery. As the audience learns more about Donny and Martha, they come across the root cause of the damage that led their paths to intersect.

Gadd saw the 2019 Baby Reindeer exhibition as a sudden triumph. He had gone to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for eight or nine years trying to grow an audience, but it was not until this project, inspired by the most painful period of his life, that he received great reviews and Hollywood became interested. The exhibition even allowed him to leave his regular job. Throughout the show, he held 74 meetings with production firms and broadcasters, until he finally accepted a deal with Netflix in 2020 to create a seven-episode series.

Jessica Gunning stars in the play Baby Reindeer.