In tonight’s Emmerdale Paddy Kirk, played by Dominic Brunt, attended a group session away from the fictional village of Emmerdale.
Filming for these scenes took place at Bradford City Football Club Ground in the room where regular Andy’s Man Club meetings are held every Monday.
Within this episode, four men with lived experience of being members of Andy’s Man Club, were featured, playing the roles of fictional attendees of the group.
During filming of these scenes, the Emmerdale Digital team went behind the scenes to hear their real life stories.
Actors Dominic Brunt (Paddy Kirk) and Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) have also contributed to this discussion on the importance of getting men to talk.
Ongoing counselling and support has been given by ITV to the men who shared their story so openly. Their hope is their participation will encourage other men to open up and talk.
Neil Waine from Andy’s Man Club, who was featured in the episode, reveals why he took part in this filming: “Filming with Emmerdale in an actual Andy’s Man Club with Andy’s Man Club lads alongside professional actors was amazing.
"When Laura the Producer first asked me about doing this episode I jumped at the opportunity to let men see a bit of how Andy’s Man Club runs and this will hopefully help us challenge the stigmas around men talking."
It was with deliberate intention of the programme makers to use an authentic meeting point for Paddy’s visit to seek help.
Neil added: "In reality many men take the step to travel out of their area to attend clubs so they can really be themselves and talk freely with strangers and to see Paddy doing this is a real life snapshot of the thought process for many men."
Emmerdale producer Laura Shaw: “We've already seen Paddy speaking to his GP, being prescribed medication, going for counselling and talking to his friends and family, to help him with his struggling mental health.
"Our research showed that in addition to these things, many people find it easier to talk to strangers about their problems and so we wanted to show Paddy doing just that - opening up in a different environment and talking to strangers.
"It was vitally important to us that we portrayed these scenes authentically, hence the scenes were shot on location at a real Andy's Man Club venue and AMC carefully and brilliantly guided us through scripting and filming the scenes so they were as true to life as possible.
"We hope if anyone watching is feeling like Paddy, like they can't talk to friends or family, they might be encouraged by these scenes to reach out to their own local club for help and support.”
As ever, we'll continue to bring you the big Emmerdale news about what is happening in the village and away from it. You can visit our Emmerdale homepage to find the latest gossip about the soap and its stars.
Emmerdale airs at 7.30pm on weeknights on ITV1.
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