AJ Pritchard, Curtis Pritchard, Hollyoaks

AJ and Curtis’s acting debut in Hollyoaks is cursed, and these reactions prove it

‘What the GCSE Drama is going on?’


You’d think after a year of global pandemic, Nando’s being shut and Bimini Bon Boulash not winning Drag Race UK that the world has been through enough. Apparently, Channel 4 decided that’s not the case, and that we all needed to endure just a little bit more hardship, courtesy of AJ and Curtis Pritchard. We regret to inform you that nobody’s favourite ballroom dancing double act were cast in Hollyoaks as new characters Marcus and Jacob, for reasons that remain deeply unclear.

A teen soap like Hollyoaks is hardly renowned for its cast’s acting chops, but the casting of the brothers known for Strictly Come Dancing and being the one that likes to make everyone a cup of coffee to make sure that they’re ready for the morning was met with horror online after a short scene of them emerged.

In the scene, the brothers haunt a children’s play area and discuss some nefarious plot against Trish (iconically played by Denise Welch) with all the subtlety of a brick through a glass window. If we’ve had to watch it, so do you:

Inevitably, the online reactions to AJ and Curtis’ chilling Hollyoaks debut were golden.

There’s no way these men grew up together, sorry!

It’s best to just not ask, tbh

This is insulting to the art of the Nativity

The Academy Awards need to give this an Oscar for best editing IMMEDIATELY

#PrayForTrish

It’s got to be a piss take surely

… I have no clue what that is, I promise!

Who the hell was in the bush?

Why were they the same in every school?

The scene was so dreadful that even Hollyoaks alumni were taking to Twitter to speak about it. Gerard McCarthy, who played Kris Fisher in the soap from 2006-2010, said the following:

No one minced their words on how they felt, and with more to come we can all only be braced for the worst.

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