Honestly as soon as we see Alby for the first time in episode 2, I recognized aspects in him that I have seen in real life. That very first interaction between Alby and Niall when Alby says he refuses to shake hands because it's a "social convention designed to keep us apart"? Oh I knew then and there this is a young man who has just recently entered the adult world, is coming from a somewhat sheltered background and has aspirations to be this super enlightened philosophical type. The issue is that he does not yet understand what that means because he has never actually experienced what it means to be the "proletariat" that he and Celeste label Niall as. It feels pretty pointed that Alby's accent is very different from that of every other character we see. The only other character who has a different accent is Celeste but that one is addressed point blank. Alby doesn't merely have an English accent, he has that received pronunciation accent that one is taught in the private schools where their wealthy parents can afford to send them and choose to send them so their kids can have every advantage possible.
This doesn't mean that his heart isn't in the right place but that's precisely it. I've met so many of those types who genuinely are well-intentioned but don't yet have the life experience to understand what they actually stand for. Niall may well have been a "proletariat" in the sense of coming from a working class background but Alby and Celeste's use of the term makes no sense to anyone who has an above surface level understanding of these things. Same thing with the shaking hands thing. There is no real logic to why Alby would choose this to be the thing that he takes a moral stance against but that by itself makes sense because this is a young man who is freshly an adult and is looking for a reason to showcase how against the oppressive social norms he is despite not yet fully understanding what those norms actually are both because of age and the sheltered middle class life he's very clearly led. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Richard Gadd, coming from a Scottish working class background and attending Oxford School of Drama (no relation to Oxford University btw), would have encountered exactly this type of classmate at least a few times.
And then later, we see a much kinder side of Alby where he recognizes the "performer" in Niall and offers his solidarity. But then he still can't understand why Niall is struggling to accept his own sexuality because Alby is thinking of the homophobic violence he experienced and how he didn't let that stop him. Alby has no knowledge of what Niall's relationship with Ruben is actually like and he simply assumes it's a very general homophobia on Ruben's part. And then he takes care of Niall when he's so drunk that he wets himself. He makes sure that Niall gets back to his dorm safely and even puts his jeans in the wash for him. And despite his frustrations with Niall's internalized homophobia, and you can even say that those frustrations were valid, he doesn't push Niall at the start. And actually, one could even extrapolate that Alby's experience with homophobic violence at his previous uni was his first encounter with a world that didn't want to accept him and of course it traumatized him. And of course, he felt frustrated when Niall still refused to come out because as far as Alby knows, he made himself vulnerable and Niall is behaving in the same way as the other guy that he hooked up with at his old uni did. Alby clearly has the rather rigid moral beliefs that young adults experiencing the world for the first time often do because those beliefs have not yet been properly challenged. And honestly that's a pretty universal thing that transcends any time period.
But he also shows that he has enough awareness to recognize that what Niall is describing about having sex with Mona because Ruben engineered it is "dark." That's a pretty big thing for a young man of that time period to be aware of but of course his understanding is still relatively limited despite that. Plus Niall immediately brushes it off.
And he tries the "not shaking hands" thing on Ruben and Ruben (because of his own experiences) sees it as Alby thinking he's superior to him. It's not until later after Ruben has destroyed the kitchen and deeply upset Joanna and thrown his weight around that Alby starts making jibes at him. Bearing in mind that Alby does not know why Ruben is the way he is. And it's undeniable that there is an element of superiority in Alby's interactions with Ruben. Alby does, on some level, see himself as better than Ruben which is what Ruben picks up on. And you could even argue that Alby is better than Ruben because he doesn't behave the way Ruben does. But that's not really relevant. It's not homophobia that makes Ruben snap and attack Alby. That defense came much later. In that moment, it was Ruben already in a state of extreme anger and distress needing a reason to be violent. And Alby gave him that reason first by pushing his self-righteous statements and then by shoving Niall. And the reasons he did shove Niall was because of his own trauma with being physically attacked for his sexuality and the frustration he felt (which again was valid even if his reaction to it wasn't) over Niall not being honest plus Ruben going out of his way to cause destruction that the others had to clean up. It's not surprising that he would react the way he did to having Niall jump on him and covering his mouth. I'd say that's actually a pretty natural reaction to have. Him shoving Niall as hard as he did was obviously an accident that he immediately regretted but at that point it was already too late and there was nothing stopping Ruben. And to be clear, obviously Alby didn't deserve what Ruben did and Ruben did deserve to go to prison. That is not even a debate.
I do understand why it may be frustrating for people that the next time we see Alby as an adult, it seems like he's not holding on to any anger towards Niall but I think it makes sense when you take the context of young Alby into consideration. As far as Alby knows, Niall got his own brother convicted because he refused to lie and throw Alby under the bus. That is what Alby saw. He also saw Ruben threatening Niall. And when we see him after that, we are shown that he has greatly healed both mentally and physically. It's not like what happened has been forgotten because Niall does bring it up. But we have to put this in the context of the characters rather than what we as the audience see or believe. It doesn't feel so far-fetched to me that Alby would be able to not only forgive but even feel fondness and compassion for Niall when he sees him again because his last memory of Niall is Niall essentially standing up for Alby to get justice. And you could even say that Alby got justice at the expense of Niall because while Alby was able to get both the mental and physical help that he needed, Niall was not. And actually, there is a point to be made here about class and money but I think that needs its own separate post.
So an adult Alby who has a lot more life experience but has retained that compassion sees this boy that he had once known when they were young uni students still struggling with himself. And he still doesn't know the depth of it all but he sees the struggle. And this time, he's a lot better in how he encourages Niall to come out. He knows now just what Ruben is capable of and he knows that Ruben is in prison so it would be safer for Niall to come out at that point than it would have been had Ruben been free. But he also knows that Niall does need to tell Ruben because that's the one person that matters the most even though he still doesn't understand why.
And I actually do think Niall had feelings for Alby. The way that question is worded feels very deliberate. "Have you ever opened yourself up to have feelings for another man?" Not "love" another man. Have "feelings." Because feelings could mean anything. And when we go back to a young Niall and Alby in uni, Niall does feel something. It's one of the things that pushes him to the point where he drinks so much he wets himself. And then he mentions Alby by name when he calls Ruben that night. But having feelings is not the same as loving someone. Certainly not the same as the all-consuming love that Niall feels for Ruben. But that doesn't mean that there aren't feelings there. And I don't think Alby necessarily loved Niall in that way either. If we go back to the Alby we met for the first time, he does have that trait of wanting to "fix" someone. I don't think it's accidental that he ended up becoming a medical professional where "fixing" people is pretty much in his job description. That, mixed in with Alby genuinely caring about Niall and seeing the struggle and knowing that Niall made a big sacrifice for him (even if he doesn't understand quite how big), means that it doesn't feel quite so surprising that he would be drawn to Niall when they meet again. Or that he would be as forgiving as he was. And it's very clear that he hasn't forgotten what Ruben has done because we see and hear the fear when he asks Niall why Ruben is at the wedding.
This has gotten way longer than I intended and I apologize. But I say all this to say that Alby (or any of the other characters but I think they deserve their own posts) is by no means a flat character despite what may appear on the surface. The dots are there for us to connect. Yes, we have to do the work as an audience and I understand why that could feel frustrating for some people but I personally don't see it that way. I think it's such a rich opportunity. And it's one that is very deliberately given to us by Richard Gadd and also Bilal Hassan and Charlie de Melo through their performances of the character.
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