Two of the most eagerly anticipated British TV shows this year have dealt with toxic masculinity.
The most recent is Russell T Davies' Channel 4 drama 'Tip Toe,' which from the off hits you in the face with the brutal outworkings of a toxic male mindset.
Alun Cumming's Scottish born Manchester bar owner Leo Struthers' body is hanging from a lamppost following an execution in his street.
There's wailing from his friends as his next door neighbour, David Morrissey's electrician Clive Goss stands in the street in a bit of a daze while his wife, Pooky Quesnel's Marie berates him.
Over the course of five episodes, Davies pieces together events leading to the shocking lynching of Leo by Clive and his sons' friends.
The retrospective narrative begins a week and a half earlier, with Leo locking himself out of his house while in a state of undress after a young man he has had a one night stand with bolts out the front door, having stolen his laptop.
Wearing only his underpants and a T shirt, Leo knocks on Clive's door to borrow his phone to call one of his best friends, Elizabeth Berrington's Stephanie who has a front door key.
Clive agrees and suggests that Leo in future gives him a spare key in case of emergencies, so he can install a key box activated by a code.
Grateful for Clive's help, Leo hires him to sort out the electrics in his bar, Spit and Polish which is a popular hangout for Manchester's LGBTQ+ community.
Among Leo's clientele is Paul Rhys' ageing drag queen Melba, while his young staff drawn from the LGBTQ+ community includes Iz Hesketh's trans woman Zee, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo's manager Judy, Gabriel Clark's bartender Mikey, Shakeel Kimotho's waitress Hanna and Dominic Holmes' drag queen DJ Regime who has a day job as a schoolteacher.
Leo is a father figure to his staff, helping them sort out their problems and telling them exaggerated versions of events from his life.
He also really values his friendship with Melba.
Caught in a frosty marriage that has been damaged by a moment of infidelity in a caravan park, Clive is uneasy in the company of Spit and Polish's staff and customers.
His anxiety ratchets up when his oldest son, Joseph Evans' Saul comes to work with him in the bar and attracts attention from some of the staff.
Unbeknown to Clive, Saul has built up a profile online by earning money in his spare time producing sexually explicit content on Only Fans and he is recognised by one of the members of Leo's staff.
In addition to this, Leo discovers Clive's younger teenage son, Jackson Connor's George is gay when he appears on a dating app.
Clearly hiding his sexuality from his parents, George is initially appalled when Leo reaches out and tries to impart advice to him via social media messaging about coming out.
With Clive clicking on violent populist political posts on social media, he's consuming a dangerous brew that increasingly messes with his head and distorts his sense of reality.
Coming off on the back of his last collaboration with Channel 4, 2021's devastating 1980s AIDS drama 'It's A Sin,' Davies serves up yet another compelling and convincing tragic drama.
But 'Tip Toe' also asks really searching questions about the advances made by the LGBTQ+ community since the 1980s and whether, in the midst of a bitter debate on trans rights, if gains have really been achieved.
Much like Netflix's 'Adolescence,' it raises pointed questions about the culture of social media, its distortion of reality and the subsequent polarisation of public debate.
The programme's leads turn arguably the best performances of their careers.
Cumming is majestic as Leo, brilliantly capturing a caring individual who has been damaged by a relationship gone wrong but who also has strong principles.
Morrissey is compelling as Clive, navigating us through his paranoia and gradual disintegration.
Berrington and Rhys are excellent in their supporting roles - the latter delivering a terrific speech reflecting on the state of the nation from a LGBTQ+ elder statesman's perspective.
Among the new acting faces, Hesketh really stands out - although Evans and Connor also make a strong impression.
It takes real skill in a drama to give away your ending early on and still keep your audiences invested as you build towards it.
That's exactly what Davies and his director Peter Hoar achieve over the course of five episodes.
For both its narrative structure and theme, 'Tip Toe' is a drama that deserves every bit of attention that 'Adolescence' received.
It's important Channel 4 continues to invest in great dramas like theze.
Although you can't help but feel that had it been released on a streaming service, it would have triggered a much louder debate on the issues it raises and not just in the UK.
('Tip Toe' was broadcast on Channel 4 on the UK between May 31-June 7, 2026 with all episodes available on its All 4 streaming service)
After the phenomenal success of Richard Gadd's Emmy winning Netflix show 'Baby Reindeer,' there was always going to be huge hype around his next project.
Gadd has created 'Half Man' for BBC1 and HBO - a brutal Scottish tale about two lads raised as brothers but not related by blood.
One of them Niall, played as a teenager by Mitchell Robertson and as an adult by Jamie Bell, is a repressed, gay man with ambitions to become a writer.
The other is Ruben, played by Stuart Campbell as a teen and Gadd as an adult, a seething toxic male who could detonate any minute.
Brought together by their mothers' lesbian relationship, Niall is grimly fascinated but also scared of Ruben who treats him like a younger brother but also isn't above bullying him.
Like 'Tip Toe,' Gadd gives us early on in the six episode drama a glimpse into their characters' future, with a showdown between the two in a barn during Niall's wedding on a country estate.
We know this is going to get pretty violent but Gadd and his directors Alexandra Brodski and Eshref Reybrouck also start to delve into Ruben and Niall's troubled past to explain how their characters got there.
In his teenage years. Niall treads a fine line as he hides his sexuality and tries to placate Ruben by undergoing teenage rites of passage like boozing and losing his virginity to a girl.
Ruben's brotherly affection for Niall is undeniable but his toxic masculinity means that it often veers into coercive control.
When Niall tries to escape his tough council estate upbringing by going to university, Ruben crashes it and you know something's bad is going to happen.
Almost inevitably Ruben perpetrates a shocking act of violence in Niall's student accommodation in an event that has devastating consequences for them both.
The incident irreparably poisons their relationship and they both struggle to come to terms with it decades later.
Like 'Tip Toe,' 'Half Man' doesn't flinch in its depiction of toxic masculinity.
However everything about Gadd's drama is amped up to one hundred and its lack of restraint soon becomes a real problem.
It's brutal language, graphic sex and bloody violence is meant to shock and impress but it actually works to the detriment of the show.
While Gadd would no doubt deny it, it feels too much geared towards performance than character, as he tries to turn Ruben into a Robert de Niro style Jake La Motta or Max Cady figure.
Yes, Gadd's performance is muscular and neanderthal but beyond that, what really is there?
Similarly Bell struggles with a character that is contradictory and also a bit broad brush.
A scene where Niall faces a cynical press conference as he launches his new novel also doesn't convince and it feels like a writer working out his grievances over some of the treatment he received during the media controversy around 'Baby Reindeer'.
Arguably the most impressive performances are delivered by Campbell as the young Ruben which feels less demanding of his audience than Gadd's and Amy Manson and Charlotte Blackwood as the older and younger versions of Mona, his character's love interest.
Julie Cullen and Bilal Hasna as Niall's fellow students Joanna and Alby, Anjli Mohindra as his girlfriend later in life, Ava and Neve McIntosh as his mother, Lori also provide solid support.
In an effort to impress audiences, you can't help feeling Gadd and his directors have massively overplayed their hand in this drama.
What could have been a really effective examination of toxic masculinity ends up fumbling the ball because its leads appear to be trying too hard to dazzle audiences with their extreme conmitment to their roles.
Unlike 'Tip Toe,' there's no moments of humour to relieve the tension and enable audiences to take a breather from the relentless misery of it all.
'Half Man' is just relentlessly bleak and depressing and any message it tries to land is ultimately lost amid the excess of its sex and violence.
Gadd is undoubtedly a gifted writer but maybe the next time he could craft a drama that is more subtle and restrained.
('Half Man' was released episodically on the BBC iPlayer in the UK between April 24-May 29 2026 and was broadcast on BBC1 between April 29-June 2, 2026)
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