Will Mellor and Ralf Little bringing podcast to Albert Hall

With this being the second time you’re taking Two Pints with Will & Ralf on the road, what were your highlights from the last tour?

Will: Honestly, every venue brought something different to it. They laugh at different things, their humour is a little bit different and we have audience participation (they send in their stories), so everything was different every night.

Ralf: Every night felt pretty freeform, in so much as the audience interaction every day was different, which was fun for us and the audience. Some people came more than once and followed us around!

Will: Although, when we played London last time at the Shepherds Bush Empire, it was great. I thought they would just sit there and say, “Go on, entertain us”, but they didn’t, they all got involved. It was also after Covid, and it was just like, ‘We’ve had enough of all the bad news, let’s forget about all that and have a good laugh for a couple of hours, have a few beers, and see what happens, with a few surprises along the way”. I can’t wait to do it again.

So, are you counting down the days when the boys can go back on tour, leaving any family life and commitments behind for those few weeks?

Ralf: That’s more of a question for Will because I don’t have any family life. I just sit around playing the PlayStation, and that’s why I look so young, and Will’s hair is falling out!

Will: We will only do Fridays and Saturdays because Ralf can’t spend more than four days away from his PlayStation. So the tour is shorter and for those that come, it will feel like a good night out, and that’s what we want and what this podcast was designed for in Lockdown. It was for people who couldn’t get out to the pub and were struggling, so they tuned in. It took off, and people enjoyed us two talking nonsense like we did in ‘Two Pints…’ as Gaz and Jonny.

Before you appeared in the TV series Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, were you aware of or perhaps even knew one another?

Ralf: I think we’d met briefly several times, sort of out and about.

Will: You came to one of the Hollyoaks houses when we were doing the ‘Men in Black’ dance in the living room.

Ralf: I did, yeah. So, here’s the story: pre-Royal Family before I’ve started my career, my good friend, that I grew up with and used to go to the same local drama group was in Hollyoaks with Will, Matt Littler. He played Max Cunningham. He told me that there was a big Halloween party at a Hollyoaks house because the boys all had a house, and the girls had one, too. So, me and Matt went as Batman and Robin, because it’s fancy dress, and I think Will went as a vampire, and he was like, “Alright, mate. Sound”. You know, like he does!

And we all then went about our evening until Men in Black came on, and the dance started and I was like, “I know this dance”. As I started doing it, Will was doing it next to me. So, at least two or three years before we ever did Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Will Mellor and I, not really knowing each other, were there giving it large to Will Smith! That sort of set the tone forever, really.

Ralf, when you got offered the lead role in Death in Paradise, did you need to consider accepting it for more than two seconds with all those months spent away in the Caribbean?

Ralf: No! I got an email from my agent. I skimmed the email, and I am a little bit annoyed, I was thinking that they need to think about the emails they send me because I’ve already been in Death in Paradise. And they should know that I’ve already been in it. I was about to call, and then I reread the email. It said for the lead detective. I was like, “Oh, that’s a slightly different email than I thought it was, maybe I’m glad I didn’t make that call”.

So, I went and had a meeting, did a little reading, and then, like with all kinds of auditions and meetings, you forget about it and I thought, “Well, I’ll never hear about that again” because that’s usually how it works.

Then I was on holiday on the west coast of Ireland, driving around and it was raining, and my phone rang, and it’s my agent. I stepped out of the car, and anyone that would have been watching me would have seen me suddenly start dancing around in the rain, in the car park.

I just knew I had this part and then went out on a boat and saw this little dolphin swimming around this western Irish Bay just going, “My life in the last five minutes has gone really strange”.

Will: That’s the magic of what we do. One minute, it’s boring, and then your life in the next year will be completely different. That’s what’s exciting about acting.

Ralf: So yeah, that was it. It was pretty amazing. And no, I didn’t hesitate for two seconds.

Will, would you ever go on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! because I know you did that sketch for Keith Lemon years ago which people still think was real?

Will: Well, to first answer your question, people think I’ve done I’m a Celebrity… because of that sketch as it goes viral every year, and do you know what? I would say no. But I did say no about Strictly, but there was always more chance of me doing Strictly than I’m a Celebrity…, just because I’ll be bored, I hate camping, its full of bugs and I am scared of spiders. So, listen, it could be entertaining for everybody…

Ralf: Will said one of the immortal quotes in one of our early podcasts where he said, “I mean, you can never say never though, can you? Because if I haven’t got any work going on. And I’m struggling to pay my tax bill; you never know, you might see me there next year with a crocodile appendage in my mouth”.

Will: Listen, If you see me on it, I’ve had a bad year. I need to pay my tax bill. So there you go!

And Ralf, would you ever be tempted to follow in Will’s footsteps and do Strictly Come Dancing, if asked?

Ralf: With Strictly, I think it is a little different than all of those other shows. I feel like if you can genuinely have a challenge, learn a skill, and learn something, you’ll carry it with you for the rest of your life, whether it’s Strictly or Dancing on Ice, which would be another one, what a fantastic skill to learn. The only ones I’ve ever done are football-related ones because I obviously love football, It’s not something that I’m particularly keen to do.

Will: You can dance though. You’ve got rhythm.

Ralf: Oh, I’d win it.

Will: Hold on! You’d win it?

Ralf: I will never say never; I’m 43 now, nearly 44, and I might say to myself soon that it is an experience I’d like to have. I don’t see it right now, but absolutely, never say never.

Will: We will chat on tour about it, and I will see if I can get an answer from him. So, if you come to the tour, we might have a little chat on stage about it, or we might even put Ralf through his paces, and I might have to show him a few steps.

Two Pints with Will and Ralf, Albert Hall, Manchester, Friday, April 5. Details from www.twopintspodcast.com