TV Week
20th June 1992
Peter O’Brien crashes back into Australian TV with a very heavy role.
Peter O’Brien, who won fans for his squeaky-clean roles in Neighbours and The Flying Doctors, has turned “evil”.
Peter, back in Australia after almost four years in Britain, will shock fans with a role in the Nine Network series Cluedo.
In the episode, to air in the next few weeks, he plays a devil-worshipping heavy-metal guitarist, Axeman Hackett, who meets his makers in Brindabella Mansion.
“Axeman is the name, corrupting young minds is the game,” Hackett says in the episode.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to do that than a role like this.”
Peter, who has starred in a string of West End Theatre productions and telefeatures, is happy to escape an icy English winter and dislikes many of England’s “antiquated and over-restrictive” laws – particularly, the operating hours of pubs on Sundays!
But he misses the “buzz and professionalism” of the UK acting profession and, more than anything, his wife of 18 months, actress Jo Riding.
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing that can be done about the situation,” Peter says, “We’ve decided to stick by an agreement. For five years or so, we simply have to where the work is. Neither of us is in a position to do otherwise. If a good job comes up, we have to think as single people.”
But there is a chance Jo may join Peter here.
“Jo is asserted with a theatre production and there is some talk it will be coming to Australia next year,” Peter says. “If it does, then Jo will probably be in it.”
Peter’s return to Australia was delayed by a London bomb blast.
“I was on my way to catch a train to the airport and the IRA below the station up,” he says.
“It really is a scary situation, when you think about it. I use public transport all the time when I’m in England, and I get pretty worried when I’m on a train in the underground and it stops suddenly in the middle of nowhere.
“You see drugs and people being beaten up. There are gangs on the ‘tubes’ who rob everyone, from one carriage to the next. It’s amazing.”
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