On 15 May 1991 at Dublin's Abbey Theatre, Behan played the lead character Connolly in the original production of Tom Murphy's play "The Patriot Game", which charted the events of the Easter Rising of 1916. He also acted as a thug in the comedy film "London Kills Me" (1991); and made an appearance in the TV film "Anglo-Saxon Attitudes" (1992), based on the 1956 satirical novel by Angus Wilson. Other TV roles included characters in episodes of "" (1995) and "The New Adventures of Robin Hood" (1997). He was subsequently handpicked by English novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford to be the male protagonist of the made-for-television film "A Secret Affair" (1999), based on her 1996 book. In the film, which gained him a large and enthusiastic female following, he starred as Bill Fitzgerald, a war correspondent who falls in love with and pursues Vanessa Stewart (Janine Turner) in Venice although she is engaged, and who is subsequently kidnapped in a war zone.