“Male grief… I think you’re born with it,” says Adrian Dunbar. Although the detective he plays in ITV crime drama Ridle y has struggled with bereavement following the death of his wife and daughter, he’s not talking about that kind of grief. He’s talking about the “abstract” ways in which men “can feel a bit empty” compared with women.

“The concept of male grief,” explains the 67-year-old in his soft, Northern Irish brogue, “was popularised by the men’s movement in the 1970s. It explores the way women have these physical, signposting stages in their lives – girlhood, motherhood and menopause – while men lack that structure. So much so that all primitive societies had to invent rites of passage – usually going away from the women and killing something – to make sense of it.”

He si

See Full Page