Baby Reindeer explained: The chilling true story behind Netflix's new hit

ok.co.uk:

As chilling new drama Baby Reindeer hits our screens on Netflix, audiences from around the country will be able to see firsthand the stuff of nightmares, as a tiny act of kindness quickly snowballs into a dangerous spiral of stalking and obsession.

Penned by and starring Richard Gadd in the lead role of Donny, the series draws on his own harrowing experience of being stalked by a woman named Martha (Jessica Gunning) after he innocently gave a free cup of tea to a woman at the pub where he worked.This single innocuous act led to an unprecedented and intrusive bombardment of over 40,000 emails, 740 tweets, 350 hours of voicemail, 100 pages of letters and 45 Facebook messages in the five years that followed.

Yet despite the sustained obsession, as the woman had never expressed any threats or violence towards him, sadly there was very little that the police could do to protect Richard from her unwanted attentions.

Reflecting on this previously, Richard once said: “The laws surrounding harassment and abuse are so stupid because they look for black and white, good and evil, and that’s not how it works.” Unwilling to become a victim, Richard decided to respond in a way that was far more familiar to him and penned a brand new play that addressed the experience he was living and drew on some of the more intimate details of his ordeal, including the play’s title - Baby Reindeer - which is a nickname his stalker had given him.