13/07/2007
Twenty-year-old Michael Obiora was born in North West London to Nigerian parents.
Michael started drama classes aged seven. He was soon encouraged to join an agency by his drama teacher. Michael then joined another drama group at nine years of age and within nine months landed a part in the hit children’s’ school drama, ‘Grange Hill’. Michael played ‘Max Abassi’ in the programme for five years. At the age of fifteen Michael appeared in such programmes as ‘Doctors’ and ‘The Bill’ but it was his role in the stage play ‘Exclude Me’ that really set the ball rolling. He completed a successful 11-week run on stage at The Chelsea Theatre. Lead roles in the award winning play ‘Fallout’ at the Royal Court Theatre and ‘Badnuff’ at The Soho Theatre soon followed.
Just before his eighteenth birthday Michael landed a major role playing the part of a soldier in ITV’s eight-part series ‘Bombshell’. This huge role was starring opposite ‘Footballers Wives’ star Zoe Lucker. The series is yet to be aired in the UK. Shortly after filming ‘Bombshell’, Michael started a seven-month run in the award winning play, ‘Elmina’s Kitchen’. Michael was short-listed as ‘Best New Comer’ for this performance.
Before the West End run of ‘Elmina’s Kitchen’ came to an end, Michael won the part of gay receptionist, ‘Ben Trueman’, in the BBC1 smash, ‘Hotel Babylon’. It is for this role that Michael is mostly known. Michael wanted to get away from playing the stereotypical black, negative characters and this is what attracted him to ‘Hotel Babylon’. The show is extremely popular achieving figures of seven million viewers per episode. It is one of the BBC’s most popular ever exports and is shown all over the world in countries such as, America Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Latin America, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Australia, Israel, Pay TV in the Middle East, India, Bulgaria, Thailand, Croatia, Bahrain, Poland and Hong Kong.
It is the number one imported show in Australia where Michael receives huge amounts of fan mail. The DVD of the first series is now on sale, the DVD of the second series is out in September 2007, and Michael starts filming the third series of ‘Hotel Babylon’ on July 9th 2007. This series will air early next year.
Michael is also currently writing a screenplay, setting up a production company, clothing line and has plans to open a restaurant in the near future. Michael also finds time to be a property developer and has just completed his third development.
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
