Hollyoaks supervillain actor lands new role in “tense” and “darkly witty” drama
He'll be playing a celebrated real-life figure.
Former Hollyoaks star Benjamin O’Mahony had a notable stint on the Channel 4 soap as his villainous character ran amok in the village, but the actor has landed a new role in a “tense” drama.
The actor appeared on the series between 2020 and 2022, as he portrayed supervillain Victor Brothers. The character ran a drug operation out of the village, before he was killed by Juliet Nightingale.
Nearly four years after his departure from the soap, O’Mahony will portray Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich in Holy Fool, a brand-new stage play written by Rosalind Adler and Lea Sellers.
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The drama is set amid Joseph Stalin’s reign of the Soviet Union, with Shostakovich attempting to preserve his “artistic voice” during a regime that is growing increasingly oppressive and authoritarian.
“Under the constant threat of torture and death, he must appease a brutal despot – while quietly resisting him. Outwardly compliant, inwardly defiant, Shostakovich composes in code: music that conceals as much as it reveals.”
The play, which is being directed by Kate Fahy, is billed as a “tense, darkly witty exploration of the absurdity of tyranny, the bravery of resistance and the triumph of the human spirit”.
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O’Mahony, who has also appeared in Doctors and Ripper Street, is joined in the cast by Jenna Augen, Phoebe Pryce and Fergus O’Donnell. That trio will play Nina, Katya and Izaak respectively.
