‘Baby Reindeer’ creator Richard Gadd opens up about how his favourite band The Pogues inspired him
Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd has opened up about how Shane MacGowan and The Pogues have influenced his work.
Gadd’s recent Netflix series claims to tell the “true story” of his real-life stalking experience and reached the top of the streaming charts after going viral online.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gadd opened up about his inspirations and in particular, the music of The Pogues and the late Shane MacGowan.
The Irish musician and iconic frontman died “peacefully” in hospital from pneumonia on November 30. He was 65 years old. His funeral took place in Nenagh, County Tipperary on December 8.
Fans lined the streets of Dublin for MacGowan’s funeral last December, which took place in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland, and was attended by Nick Cave, Glen Hansard and Irish President Michael D. Higgins.
Speaking about MacGowan and the band’s influence on him, Gadd explained: “Shane and the Pogues have been massive influences. I bumped into someone…whose boyfriend produced the show so they gave me a backstage pass. I was like, ‘are you kidding me? I’m going to meet the Pogues?’ I met [Spider Stacy, Jem Finer and James Fearnley] from the Pogues, and all of them had watched the show.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I posted that I met the Pogues and then they actually posted it to their official Instagram, a picture of them with me, which is just kind of unbelievable. They’ve inspired me so much.”
You can see the post here:
Meanwhile, the woman who allegedly served as the real inspiration for the Martha character, Fiona Harvey, took part in an interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored last week (May 9), in which she denied multiple times that she had stalked Gadd between 2014 and 2015.
She also said she was “taking legal action against Richard Gadd and Netflix” and that “we have instructed lawyers in part, but we want to explore all of the options out there. There are a number of people to sue.”
During her interview with Morgan, Harvey revealed she hadn’t watched Baby Reindeer, saying: “Not at all. I’ve heard about the court scene, about the jail sentences and all this sort of stuff… I haven’t watched any of it.”
She also counter-claimed the stalking allegations, alleging that she herself was the victim, claiming she met Gadd only a few times and asked him to “leave her alone”. Harvey also denied there were thousands of emails that could serve as evidence against her, adding: “I wouldn’t be suing if I thought there were 41,000 emails out there.”
Morgan said he believes that Harvey lied “quite a lot” to him in the interview, adding: “If [she] threatened legal action against Netflix and Gadd goes ahead, I suspect it will quickly emerge she did send all the emails, messages, and letters to him.”
The interview has drawn a backlash from viewers, with many calling it “exploitative”, “cruel”, “irresponsible” and “ghoulish”.
Gadd recently urged people to stop speculation over the real identities of the characters in the series, stating: “That’s not the point of our show”.
Meanwhile, TV writer Russell T. Davies has suggested that if Baby Reindeer were made by the BBC, there would have been “much stricter” measures to cover the identities of the real-life people involved, adding to The Times: “Compliance and editorial policy drives us mad here but I sleep at night.”
Amid the controversy, Netflix’s policy chief Benjamin King has said that Netflix and the production company “took every reasonable precaution in disguising the real-life identities of the people involved in that story”.
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Elizabeth Aubrey
NME
