Emmerdale star Joshua Richards has addressed his character Bear Wolf’s big new storyline.

Emmerdale producer Laura Shaw recently revealed that Bear will “be in the spotlight” in the coming months for a “big storyline”.

“He’s going to go off screen for a little while, he’s going to go missing,” she explained. “And when he comes back, what you’ll see is a very different Bear in a really different situation.

“We’re all going to be watching and going, ‘What the hell has happened here?’ That’s going to be really exciting.”

While specifics are being kept under wraps for the time being, Richards has teased Bear’s mood before he disappears.

“He’s not too good for some reason, which we don’t know why. So he’s been slightly erratic emotionally and with his moods,” he said.

“There are mood swings coming up for him, periods of forgetfulness, and maybe the kind of things that happened with a man of his age.”

The actor was also asked how Bear is coping living with Paddy and Mandy, to which he said: “Not very well”.

He continued: “It’s a bit ambiguous, but I think he feels, as he’s got older, he’s got less of a role to play within society, and because he was quite a big thing in his time, he’s become less and less of that.

“I think he’d accept that, but then to discover a son, to discover a whole new part of the family, then to be part of it, and then to feel that you are in the way as any rational human being would feel like with a new couple living with him in a new house.

“I think it upsets him and I think that’s the catalyst for his erratic behaviour because he feels like there’s nowhere he belongs.

“So that’s the sad thing about it and I think that can be quite a major part of a lot of older people who happen to be living with younger family or with their offspring, that they feel that they shouldn’t be there and they should be looking after themselves.”

While Bear doesn’t speak to Paddy and Mandy about how he’s feeling, Richards said that the couple are “gradually becoming aware that something is very much wrong, but they can’t put their finger on it”.

“We always repeat our mistakes, history repeats itself, but the second time is fast, and it’s happening again because all of Paddy’s problems with this depression and his eventual attempted suicide may be occurring again right in front of his eyes, and he can’t see,” he added.

On the importance of tackling subjects like this, Richards said: “A serial drama like this is not just for decoration.

“It’s to take on major issues that are affecting people, and what’s amazing is that all of these things are taken on fearlessly and highlight things that are going on in the world that people would probably never hear about.

“So yes, I think it’s vital. It’s social conscience, and let’s tackle these big issues and see if we can find a way to inform people about what’s going on.”