While starting off more comic in tone, new streaming hit series Baby Reindeer becomes darker as it goes on, says columnist NICK OVERALL. 

It’s no easy feat trying to categorise Netflix’s new hit series Baby Reindeer into a specific genre.

That’s because while watching it I often found myself unsure whether to laugh or cringe at what was unfolding. 

This British seven-parter exists in a strange limbo between comedy and creepy and the linchpin between them is Jessica Gunning’s chilling performance as Martha, a serial stalker who develops an obsession with the show’s protagonist Donny.

He’s a 27-year-old wannabe stand-up comedian working behind a bar when he meets the woman 10 years his senior who he takes pity on and buys a cup of tea for after she laments being unable to afford one.

It’s the catalyst for the fanatical chaos to come.

Martha proceeds to sit on the other side of the bar every day, leaving a Diet Coke untouched and bombarding her new-found obsession with swooning remarks.

That’s just the start. As her obsession deepens her behaviour only becomes more deranged.

It’s not long before Donny is receiving hundreds of texts and emails, barely comprehensible yet clearly love struck.

The brutal awkwardness can be both hilarious and hard to sit through. It’s like a car crash unfolding in slow motion that’s impossible to look away from. 

But what makes this bizarre story all the more intriguing is that it’s true.

The names and details have been changed, but comedian Richard Gadd who plays Donny in the show was actually stalked in-real-life by a woman who, go-figure, he bought a cup of tea for in a bar. Years later, he’d decided to write a television show about it.

The story has been “tweaked slightly to create dramatic climaxes”, Gadd said in an interview with The Guardian but “it’s very emotionally true. I was severely stalked and severely abused. But we wanted it to exist in the sphere of art, as well as protect the people it’s based on”.

Actress Jessica Gunning absolutely disappears into the role of this woman who’s sweet on the surface yet sinister underneath. Creepy enough to even give Annie Wilkes, from Stephen King’s Misery, a run for her money.

The episodes are interspersed with what appears to be real text messages and emails that Gadd received from her during the whole ordeal (in total more than 43,000).

Martha says she’s a big-shot lawyer who’s handled some of the century’s biggest political cases, a strange detail indeed given she is unable to afford a cup of tea.

While starting off more comic in tone, the show does become darker as it goes on. A warning to some viewers out there, that Baby Reindeer unflinchingly explores topics such as abuse and drug addiction, but this is a story that has captured audiences around the world.

Baby Reindeer has managed to climb its way to Netflix’s number one show in Australia, the US, and the UK, watched by more than 2.6 million viewers. That’s on top of an almost unheard of 100 per cent critical approval rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

It seems Gadd has caught lightning in a bottle.

Perhaps in an age where it is so easy to peer into one another’s lives through the use of social media, a story about someone who becomes obsessively followed was always going to strike a chord.

We’ve seen it before with Netflix’s drama series “You”, about a fictional psychopath who runs a bookstore and who becomes infatuated with his customers.

But there’s something about Baby Reindeer that feels far more real and far less glorified. There’s something about such a small interaction with a stranger leading to a seemingly inescapable nightmare that is so chilling.

The show is made up of seven 30-minute episodes making it a very easy watch that many will no doubt binge.

From the moment I started it, Baby Reindeer had a hold on me tighter than a hug from its central stalker.