Why did Jonny leave 2 Pints of Lager? Ralf Little gave his reason on This Morning in 2007

There was no storyline, no falling-out and no cliffhanger. The explanation showed up on a sofa on ITV, roughly eighteen months after his last episode aired.

Ralf Little played Jonny Keogh from the first series in February 2001 through the sixth, which ended on 30 April 2006. Susan Nickson's sitcom ran for nine series and 80 episodes between 2001 and 2011, moving from BBC Two to BBC Choice to BBC Three, and Little's departure came at the point where he had been doing it for five years straight.

What he actually said

In a September 2007 interview on This Morning, Little confirmed he would not be returning, and gave his workload as the reason — he had more commitments than the schedule could absorb. The character was killed off as a result.

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It wasn't a bluff. His credits from that stretch are dense:

• Robin Hood (2007) — a guest turn as Joseph in "The Angel of Death."
• KateModern (2007) — the Bebo web series, as Gavin Taylore.
• Massive (2008) — six episodes on BBC Three as Danny Stewart.
• Marple (2008) — Sergeant Pickford in "A Pocketful of Rye."
• The Waiting Room (2008) — a feature, as Stephen.
• The Bush Theatre — 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover in 2008.

He was also still Antony Royle, a role he played across The Royle Family and its specials from 1998 to 2010, and he narrated Last Man Standing and Monkey Life. Death in Paradise, where he took over as DI Neville Parker from 2020 to 2024, was more than a decade away.

How the show got rid of him

Jonny dies off-screen between series. The series 7 opener, "When Jonny Met Sharky," aired on 13 January 2008 and opens with the news that he has been eaten by a shark in Hawaii, having won a shark-jumping competition. The second episode of the series is his funeral.

The premiere was broadcast live from BBC Television Centre, with 897,000 people watching it go out. The script was written to make that harder rather than easier — deliberate tongue twisters and physical stunts, on the theory that a live episode should carry actual risk.

Nickson wrote her lead character's death as a shark-jumping accident, which is the industry term for the moment a show goes over the top. In case anyone missed it, Janet gets to say "Aaay!"

What it set up

Jonny's exit reorganized the rest of the series. Janet (Sheridan Smith) spent series 7 and 8 working through his death and toward Gaz (Will Mellor), who had already fathered her son Corinthian during a one-night stand — a paternity fact Jonny had discovered during the labour and kept to himself. Luke Gell joined as Tim Claypole from 2008.

The show outlived him by three series. It didn't outlive him by much else: Smith and Kathryn Drysdale both left after series 8 in May 2009, and series 9 in 2011 was effectively a new programme with new writers.

Little never came back, not for the funeral, not for a flashback, not for the 2011 finale.

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