The seven-part limited Netflix series stars Richard Gadd, who also wrote and co-produced the story based on his life.

What started as an award-winning one-person comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival became a successful and dark Netflix miniseries. The series Baby Reindeer follows Donny Dunn, a struggling comedian in his late twenties and part-time bartender who encounters a woman in her 40s named Martha (Jessica Gunning, “White Heat,” What Remains”) when she enters the bar he works in. After Martha reveals her financial woes, Donny offers her a cup of tea free of charge. Martha takes this kind gesture to heart. She comes to the bar daily, and Donny provides free diet cokes. The relationship blossoms; they’re at ease with one another. Donny enjoys her odd, contagious laugh. She compliments his features and quick-witted quips. He soaks it in.

Martha mentions to Donny that her birthday is coming up. Unsure what to say, he suggests they meet, not for a date, as he clarifies his platonic interest in Martha, but for a fun interaction between friends. She agrees. When they get together to celebrate her birthday at a cafe, Martha starts getting triggered by Donny’s insistence that they are friends and nothing else and starts yelling. The pair leave the cafe, and Donny follows her to glimpse her real life. Donny tries to be discreet as he peeps into Martha’s living room window, only to be discovered by her when his phone rings; it’s Martha calling. Donny’s misstep sets off a chain of unfortunate events.

Martha begins to email Donny numerous times daily. She goes to his one-person show comedy acts and either heckles or cheers him on while he’s on stage. She follows him everywhere and emails him incessantly, where the harassment becomes unbearable for Donny. He goes to the police station to report Martha, and the officers don’t take him seriously.

What’s deeply fascinating is how Donny and Martha feed off one another’s need for affection. He’s a comedian craving attention from the public. Although an audience of one, he subconsciously likes Martha’s adulation, although nightmarish, and comes in the form of 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages, and 106 pages of letters. Martha sent Donny an array of odd gifts, everything from sleeping pills, a wooly hat, and boxer shorts to a baby reindeer toy. The real-life Donny (Richard Gadd) endured Martha’s obsessive interactions for four and a half years. Martha’s erratic harassment spilled over to Donny’s parents, former girlfriend, and a trans woman, played wonderfully compelling by Nava Mua (Disclosure).

But it gets worse for Donny. During one of Martha’s aggressive encounters, she gropes Donny. Repressed memories of a former sexual abuser instantly trigger him. And Martha realizes this when she stops touching Donny and says: “Who hurt you?” The scene is profoundly revealing for both characters. It’s as if broken recognizes broken. You sympathize with Donny and Martha. Donny acknowledges Martha’s mental instability, simultaneously realizing he has unresolved trauma he must contend with.

So the real-life Donny, Richard Gadd, chose to write, act, and produce this period in his life that had been consuming him:

“I couldn’t keep my life separate from what I’d been through anymore. It was becoming increasingly hard to play the frivolous funnyman when I’d been through these kinds of things,” he told The Independent. “Because I don’t think I could have survived having repressed it and carried on doing these one-liners and surface-level routines. It was almost a survival choice. Because I was struggling so much.”

Hard to watch at times. Intriguing. Dark, for sure. Baby Reindeer is worth binging and getting a rare perspective on male sexual assault and the trauma that ensues. Stream it now on Netflix.