WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for the Netflix series Baby Reindeer
In the wake of the surprise success of Baby Reindeer, a show about a struggling Scottish comedian called Donny (Richard Gadd) and the woman who obsessively stalks him, a swathe 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.Credit: 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........