Ralf Little has opened up about his character Neville in Death in Paradise, and revealed that he will struggle on the island of St. Marie as he is allergic to almost everything. Chatting to HELLO! and other reporters ahead of his debut on the popular comedy drama on Thursday night, he explained: "[The writers] had a top line idea then we sort of developed how to execute the idea - Ben's character was very clear in that he hated being there, and just wanted to go home. He hated the island. They wanted to return to some kind of conflict, they tried to flip it on its head so that Neville would have been happy to be there, but the island hated him rather than him hating the island."
Ralf opened up about why Neville will struggle on the island
He continued: "The way they express that is that he is allergic to everything. Every type of pollen bring brings on hay fever, the salt water in the sea brings him out in rashes… He gets sunburned really easily – he struggles. He physically struggles all of the time."
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Ralf replaced Ardal O'Hanlon as the new detective
He added that he wasn't a big complainer or a hypochondriac, but that he genuinely struggled with different health problems. "That's what we had to work out because we didn't just want somebody who was just complaining all the time," he said. "So we had to try and find this way of somebody who's like, 'Look, I'm not trying to be difficult. This is just the reality of my life. I would love it here but it's very, very difficult for me.' It still frustrates all his team, it still frustrates everyone. They'll turn up to a crime scene and be like, 'Right, let's go and investigate,' and he'll be like, 'Oh, hold on there's some long grass, let me just put some antihistamine cream.' So he really struggles… It's not like he's a hypochondriac, all of it is real. He just has to manage his experiences."
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