In the wake of the surprise success ofBaby Reindeer,a show about a struggling Scottish comedian called Donny (Richard Gadd) and the woman who obsessively stalks him,a swath of stories have been published asking the same questions:who is the real Martha,and where is she now?
Few,if any,have addressed the other,and arguably more important,question posed by this based-on-truth tale:who is the real Darrien O’Connor (Tom Goodman-Hill),the powerful English TV writer/producer who sexually abuses Donny,and how many other lives has he ruined?
Richard Gadd plays a bartender whose life is invaded by an obsessive,lonely patron in Baby Reindeer,which is based on his one-man show of the same name.Netflix
Baby Reindeer has given Netflix that most elusive thing,a watercooler hit. Anyone who has seen it desperately wants to talk with others about it,and those who haven’t are trying to catch up so they can join the conversation.
That has helped Gadd’s oddball autobiographical dramedy to land in the streamer’s top 10 in 13 countries,including the US,UK and Australia. In its first week,it was the fifth-most-streamed English-language TV series globally on the platform,with 2.6 million views (a figure arrived at by dividing total hours viewed by total series running time).
The curiosity about the Scottish woman who stalked Gadd is understandable. The show references news reports about her prior obsessions (including with a policeman and a lawyer),while the abusive,threatening and sometimes explicit messages she sent “Donny” are,Gadd claims,extracted verbatim from those he was sent by the real perpetrator (41,071 emails,350 hours of voice messages,744 tweets,46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of letters,according to the oft-published tally).
Martha (Jessica Gunning) enters Donny’s life and refuses to leave.Netflix
The behaviour of the woman – superbly played by English actor Jessica Gunning – ranges from merely needy to genuinely threatening. She turns on a dime from would-be seductress to potential,and then actual,attacker. Not,perhaps,since Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest inFatal Attraction (1987) have we seen such a terrifying portrait of hell-hath-no-fury wrath.
But if it is Martha’s exceptionalism that makes her fascinating,what is it that makes Darrien fly under the radar? Is it simply that a male abuser – whose status and power helps both to procure victims and to shield him – is so ordinary as to pass almost without remark?
Gadd has said in interviews that the events he addresses in the pivotal fourth episode happened with a man he met while performing stand-up comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012. In the show,he is befriended by an older,respected writer-producer with serious connections in the world of British television. Over a course of many months,he is groomed,drugged,and raped – repeatedly.
Through a combination of ambition,confusion,denial and above all self-loathing,Donny keeps going back to his abuser. It ruins his life and his relationships,and ultimately plays a major part in his allowing Martha into his world,where yet more ruination follows.
Darrien (Tom Goodman-Hill) first befriends,then grooms and ultimately abuses Donny.Netflix
According to a study published in the journalBehavioral Sciences last year,in Western nations such as the UK,the US,and Scandinavia male-on-male incidents account for between 5 and 10 per cent of all sexual assaults. But,the authors claim,between 90 and 95 per cent of those violations go unreported.
Until he went public with his showMonkey See,Monkey Do in 2016,that was Gadd’s experience too.
Baby Reindeer (which is based on his 2019 stage show of the same name) features a key scene in which Donny articulates his reluctance to report Martha’s crimes.
“When it came to the point of going to the police,I just couldn’t stand the irony of reporting her but not him,” he says. “There was always a sense that she was ill,that she couldn’t help it,whereas he was a pernicious,manipulative groomer. To admit to her was to admit to him,and I hadn’t admitted him to anyone yet.”
With this show,Gadd addresses that. But it admits only to the act,not the actor. While plenty of people believe (rightly or wrongly) that they have identified the woman behind Martha,the real Darrien remains a mystery.
In a thread on Reddit devoted to speculation about Martha’s identity,one poster writes:“Can we pretty please put this energy into finding the real-life Darrien. Because unless all of that was fictionalised,he’s likely still working in the industry and has a long list of victims outside of Gadd.”
“I’m fine with not knowing who Martha is,maybe because her portrayal was rather sympathetic at times,” writes another. “But also she at least had to answer for her issues at some point. Darrien basically got away with it and could still be doing that shit.”
Defamation law means the man who allegedly abused Gadd will likely remain unnamed,even if it is possible with some online sleuthing to work out his likely identity. But in going public with his experience,the Scottish comedian has done something potentially more important than naming. He has taken away some of the shaming that is the most powerful weapon the Darriens of the world have to silence their victims.
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