Is ‘Baby Reindeer’ Based on a True Story?
Netflix viewers have a new obsession and it goes by the name of Baby Reindeer. The dark dramedy from playwright Richard Gadd tells the story of Donny Dunn, a struggling comedian who has a twisted relationship with his female stalker Martha (The Outlaws‘ Jessica Gunning).
Baby Reindeer tracks the impact of this relationship Donny has with Martha and the deeply buried trauma that he’s forced to confront because of it. For those less clued into the lore of Baby Reindeer, this might seem like a story too wild to be true, but it is, in fact, a true story. Based on Gadd’s Edinburgh Fringe one-man play, Baby Reindeer recounts his own personal experience with a stalker.
Netflix
“It’s a true story,” Gadd revealed to Netflix’s Tudum. “In a weird way, I first started feeling like this could be a good story during the whole ordeal itself. It was one of the most intense periods, when I was listening to these voicemails. I’d go to sleep at night and these voicemails — her words would bounce around my eyelids. I remember thinking, ‘God, if I was ever to speak about this onstage, I’d fire the words around. Put the voicemails in a big cacophony and fire it.’ That’s how the play was born.”
Ultimately, the play turned into the adaptation viewers are streaming now on Netflix, but is aided by an ensemble that among Gadd and Gunning includes Nava Mau as Teri and Tom Goodman-Hill as Darrien. “There’s something slightly crazy about it, the whole thing, doing it — the layers upon layers,” Gadd added. “It is a heavy brew and it’s all very challenging for sure.”
For those who have yet to tune in, Donny first meets Martha as a bartender. When he shows her a bit of kindness, that is repaid with an extreme obsession that puts both of their lives at risk, and at the same time forces Donny to confront his own demons. But when approaching the story, Gadd wanted to make sure that every character was seen in a humane way, rather than through a narrow-minded perspective.
“Stalking on television tends to be very sexed-up. It has a mystique. It’s somebody in a dark alleyway. It’s somebody who’s really sexy, who’s very normal, but then they go strange bit by bit,” told Tudum. “But stalking is a mental illness. I really wanted to show the layers of stalking with a human quality I hadn’t seen on television before. It’s a stalker story turned on its head. It takes a trope and turns it on its head.”
Have you tuned into Baby Reindeer yet? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Baby Reindeer, Streaming now, Netflix
