Will Mellor breaks down and sobs in new series with Ralf Little, but feels 'reborn'

has an emotional breakdown as he revisits the grief he felt after his dad died, while visiting a “man camp” for a new TV series.

The actor sobs like a baby as he and old pal are shown how to deal with pain and trauma they’ve experienced during their lives. But while Will, 48, ends up feeling “reborn” thanks to the techniques they discover, closed off Ralf realises his tendency to lock himself away isn’t healthy. The pair first met on the set of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps in 2001 and have been buddies ever since. In new UKTV series Will and Ralf Should Know Better, they seek out adventures and challenges that might make them feel a bit more like grown-ups.

The emotion overspills in the final episode, to be screened later this month. “I thought I could talk about losing my dad, talk about his memory in a positive way,” Will tells the . “But for some reason at that moment, it just all came back, and I realised there's a lot that I haven't dealt with, there's a lot of pain still inside.”

READ MORE:

The dad-of-two, who starred in huge hit earlier this year, lost his "hero" dad to cancer during the pandemic and wasn’t able to say a proper goodbye. “I didn't expect the reaction I had,” he explains. “It shocked me how much I was carrying and how much I've been protecting myself and my loved ones from what I'm really feeling. It was an eye-opener.”

During the man camp session, which takes place in Dorset, he has to tell a stranger about his loss and he finds the tears flow freely. “A lot of the time, you think you’re OK, and it's only when you say it out loud that it hits you. It was like the grief happened yesterday. “When I lost my Dad I collapsed, my legs went, and I felt the same feeling at the man camp. When you feel like that, you just feel like you've been through the mill and you feel so weak. Every day I've got to get up and be strong and look after the family and be focused. But it all came out in that moment. I felt so exposed.”

The actor said it also brought back the pain of losing his sister Joanne, who was born with disabilities and died in 2012, aged 44, soon after being taken away for a break by a charity. The family feel she was failed by a carer who failed to give her the right amount of medication. “All the emotions came back from losing my sister as well, everything came back and hit me all at once, and I was unprepared for it. I probably do need to have some therapy sessions.”

He reckons part of the pain that viewers see on the screen comes from feelings of frustration over what happened to Joanne. “I felt like I didn't protect her as a brother, and the anger I still have inside me about that is unbearable, because I can't get her back, and I can't hold them accountable. We can’t say 100 per cent that’s why she died, but how disrespectful to treat somebody like that when they could have just looked at the form and seen how many tablets she should have been on instead of saying, ‘No, you need one, not five.' She thought she was going to die after that, and she did. She had a heart attack.”

In the programme Ralf - who admits he’s unable to shake his “cynicism” when it comes to his own reaction - is full of admiration for Will’s ability to let it all out. As Will weeps, Ralf tells him simply: “I’ve never seen you stronger.” And pointing to his own tendency to bottle things up, he adds: “If you’re not careful you’ll end up like me, getting to 44, going ‘oh sh*t, I’ve got no emotions’."

Looking back now, Will says: “Ralf was superb with me. We’ve always been close but we’re very different people, and that's what makes it work. We see life in a different way, and that's why it works as a friendship and on our podcast - we approach things differently. For him to say that, it was a great moment.” He explained: “There’s a wealth of stuff that I've had to bury, because I can't change it. But what I do need to do is talk about it more because it saves the anger building up. I tried to turn my losses into a positive and that's why I did and why I'm trying to do different things with my life and my career.”

Ralf explains on camera that the death of his own big sister when she was just 14 is the reason he keeps his feelings firmly bottled up, with Will admitting that despite their 20 year friendship there was lots he didn’t know about what had happened. In heartbreaking scenes, Ralf tells him as they drive along: “I feel like I had two childhoods. From when I was born to when I was nine, I had a happy childhood. From when I was nine to when I was eighteen, it was less so.

“When I was nine we went to Cornwall and my eldest sister Ceri died. She fell off a cliff. I don’t even know how you get over that. My parents never had any help. I had an emotional barrier. The best way I can explain it is, I was full of rage. And I was like, “F*** this, f*** life, I’ll show life and I’ll show everyone else as well.” He confessed that his heart sank at the mention of Man Camp. “Do I ever open up my inner ? No! I keep that sh*t to myself, thank you. I’m not going to sort it out by dancing around to a drum.” But in the programme there is a trust exercise which sees Will fall back before being lifted up by the whole group. He finds it extraordinarily cleansing, tearfully saying on screen: “It’s like being reborn - I felt like I was flying.”

Former actor Ralf, who split with his long-term partner Lindsey Ferrentino earlier this year, said he wished he could be more like Will and let it all out. “I watched Will today articulating complex, difficult ideas and emotions. It’s not easy, that stuff, and he didn’t even break stride,” he marvels. Ralf said he’d been left astonished by the positive impact it had on his pal. “I’ve seen it on TV, those trust exercises, and it felt like a trope but to see Will lighter, it was like something had really clicked for him. It was bliss. He looked at peace. To watch my mate having a profound moment of realisation was quite amazing.”

Will said that the process of making the series had helped them both. “I know more about Ralf now in the month or so we were filming than I ever did in the past twenty years, because normally if I ever ask him about himself, he just says, ‘I don't know, what about you?’ I think slowly but surely with Ralf it came out. Now I know why he reacts like that because I found out about him losing his sister and how difficult that must have been.” In another poignant moment, Ralf confesses that his childhood trauma might be behind his reluctance to settle down and have a family. “You’re still talking to a 44-year-old man with no kids,” he sighs. “I genuinely think there’s probably something that’s holding me back from that. It’s… what if it goes wrong?”

- Will and Ralf Should Know Better, episode 4, will air on U&Dave on October 27 with the full series also available to stream on U

Follow Mirror Celebs on , , , , , and .