Christine McKenna (born 1951) is a British actress active during the 1970s and 1980s, best known for playing Christina in the television series Flambards.
McKenna was a drama student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow in the early 1970s. During her summer holidays she learned stage management and theatrical wardrobe at the Byre Theatre.
Mckenna appeared in productions for the National Theatre and in the West End of London, including Stephen Sondheim´s A Little Night Music with Jean Simmons and Hermione Gingold, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Great Expectations, and played Polly in The Boy Friend with Glynis Johns, Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and Moll in Moll Flanders.[1]
McKenna was also a member of the Royal Lyceum Theatre company in Edinburgh, and with that company appeared in Kidnapped and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and played the Principal Girl in several traditional pantomimes.[1]
In the mid-1970s, Mckenna starred as Jess in 41 episodes of the popular TV series The Kids from 47A (1973–75).[2] She appeared in the BBC TV production Smike (1973), a musical by Roger Holman and Simon May. Her other television credits include Georgina Hogarth in Dickens of London with Roy Dotrice (1976), Friends and Other Lovers (1981) for ITV Playhouse, and the film Mask of Murder (1985). However, she is probably best known for her starring role as "Christina" in 13 episode miniseries Flambards (1979).
In her 1981 autobiography Why Didn't They Tell The Horses?, Mckenna states that when she had auditioned for the role of "Christina" in Flambards, she had never previously ridden a horse. Mckenna was so determined to gain the part, that she described the horse-obsessed childhood of a friend and passed it off as her own, and got the part. For the miniseries, Mckenna then had to learn to ride sidesaddle very quickly.[3] [4] In 1989, she appeared in a ITV Yorkshire television broadcast, celebrating the network's 21st birthday. It was 10 years since the initial release of Flambards.
| Year | Title | Role | Company | Director | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | Willie Rough | Nurse | Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh | Bill Bryden | ||
| 1972 | Kidnapped | Catriona Drummond MacGregor | Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh | Bill Bryden | adaptation by Keith Dewhurst |