Mi reno de peluche

Mi reno de peluche is a stand-up and comedy show staged at the Teatro Infanta Isabel in Madrid. It is based on the real-life experience of Richard Gadd and revolves around an obsession that grows out of a simple act of courtesy.

It all starts with a small courtesy: Richard offers a cup of tea to someone he does not know. That encounter, seemingly insignificant, gives way to a relationship that becomes increasingly unsettling, with messages, calls and meetings that end up taking over every area of Richard's life.

Rather than a portrait of a stalker and his victim, the show follows Richard as he tries to extricate himself from a situation that he has, in part, fuelled himself. From there it raises uncomfortable questions: why he let things go so far, where his own mistakes end and others' begin, and how compassion can be confused with need and with the desire to feel loved.

The piece draws on the real experience of Richard Gadd and reflects on guilt and the consequences that an apparently innocent decision can carry. Before becoming the series Baby Reindeer, the story was born as a play, and its text addresses masculinities, the difficulty of recognising one's own identity and the pressure to meet other people's expectations.