After breaking out with the Emmy-winning Netflix miniseries Baby Reindeer, Scottish actor-comedian-writer Richard Gadd is back on our screens with yet another moodily dark and occasionally tender exploration of masculinity. Created by and starring Gadd, Half Man explores the turbulent relationship between two brothers not related by blood but rather a blood-soaked past. Gadd plays the buffed-up, tattooed troublemaker Ruben Pallister, while Jamie Bell stars as Niall Kennedy, Ruben’s mild-mannered ‘brother from another lover’.
While Baby Reindeer was soundtracked to melancholic classics like ‘Happy Together’ and ‘Smalltown Boy’, Half Man also offers a blend of moody musical numbers from 80s groups like Simple Minds, The Cure and New Order. The soundtrack also offers a dash of classical music with a Bach composition. Elsewhere, Kylie Minogue’s disco anthem ‘All the Lovers’ sets the mood, while Normal People fans would be delighted to also hear Yazoo’s ambient track ‘Only You’ in one of the six episodes.
Here’s your guide to the entire tracklist of the BBC/HBO miniseries.
What’s on the Half Man soundtrack?
Episode 1
Clevor Trever – Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Episode 2
Cello Suite No.6 in D Major – Alexander Rudin (Bach)
Inbetween Days – The Cure
Love Song – Simple Minds
No More Heroes – The Stranglers
Quiet Life – Japan
Don’t Leave Me This Way – The Communards
Doctor! Doctor! – Thompson Twins
Take Me I’m Yours – Squeeze
Blue Monday – New Order
Age of Consent – New Order
Why – Bronski Beat
Echo Beach – Martha and the Muffins
Rat Trap – The Boomtown Rats
Torch – Soft Cell
The Order of Death – Public Image Ltd.
Only You – Yazoo
Episode 3
Come Home – James
The Killing Moon – Echo and the Bunnymen
The Last Rose of Summer – Renée Fleming
Episode 4
The Saddest Sound – Devastations
Episode 5
All the Lovers – Kylie Minogue
When I’m Small – Phantogram
Sister Europe – The Psychedelic Furs
Episode 6
Danny Boy – Shane MacGowan and the Popes
Who stars in Half Man?
Richard Gadd leads the cast as the titular ‘half man’, this being his first high-profile project since his acclaimed turn in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer. Billy Elliot and Tintin actor Jamie Bell joins the cast as Gadd’s co-lead. Stuart Campbell (Rogue Heroes) and Mitchell Robertson (A Very British Scandal) play the younger versions of Gadd and Bell’s characters respectively. The rest of the cast includes Bilal Hasna (Extraordinary), Neve McIntosh (Doctor Who), Charlie De Melo (Coronation Street), and Stuart McQuarrie (28 Days Later).
Where can I watch Half Man?
The miniseries premiered its first episode on April 23, with the other five episodes rolling out every Thursday. The series is available to watch on HBO Max in the US and BBC iPlayer in the UK.
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