“It was a crash course.”

Hollyoaks actor Sam Tutty has spoken out about how the soap saved him back during the COVID pandemic.

The performer is best known for his Olivier Award-winning turn playing the titular role in Dear Evan Hansen in the West End, but had a stint on the Channel 4 soap between June and October 2021.

He played Timmy Simons, a stalker with a crush on Peri Lomax who tried to ruin her relationship with Juliet Nightingale, and then turned violent when the truth was discovered. He ended up getting shot by his boss Fergus Collins, while Warren Fox helped bury his body in the woods.

Speaking on Love Island star Amber Davies’ podcast Call to Stage, Tutty explaned: “It was great. I loved working on Hollyoaks.

“Some of the stuff was questionable, what they wanted me to say, in terms of pure quality, because they just have to get it out, get it out. Seven episodes a week.

“So I was a bad guy and I stalked a girl who had a girlfriend. I think I pretended to set up carbon monoxide detectors that had hidden cameras in bathrooms and showers and stuff.

“And then I got killed off! I was pleased in a way because… I had learned a lot.

“It was a crash course in acting in front of a camera. I met some of the most hilarious people on that show and it paid during a time when I wasn’t getting paid. I wasn’t on furlough, self-employed. My tax was coming in. I’m very conscious of money.”

He also added that being on Hollyoaks helped him with the “really, really good skill” of learning his lines “impossibly quick”.

Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.