Actor on 'coming home' to Glasgow as new Oran Mor season begins

Actor Christina Strachan admits personal experience of being a mum to two girls has helped her get in character for Forever Home, Pauline Lockhart’s play about identity and family.

“You do lose them a bit when they become teenagers, don’t you?” she muses. “You’ve been their world, and they’ve always told you everything, but suddenly you have to drag every last bit of information out of them…”

She sighs: “It’s a shocker.”

Christina in rehearsals for Forever Home (Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)

In Forever Home, Christina plays the mum of a girl she adopted when she was three.

“Caitlin is now 16, and her birth family want to be in her life, so it’s all about the struggles she is facing as she finds her feet,” says Christina. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful story, written and directed by women, and acted by women… so much womanhood, it’s wonderful, and very emotional."

Much of it will resonate with parents, agrees Christina.

“The opening scene is me talking to a police officer, because Caitlin hasn’t come home, and it taps into that conversation all parents have with their kids - please, answer your phone, let me know where you are..." she says, adding with a grin: “So yeah, not a huge stretch for me to get into character for this one…”

Christina with co-stars Kirsty Findlay and Chloe Hodgson (Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)

Christina, who is from Kirkcaldy, fell in love with performing watching Sunday variety shows on the television.

“The credits always used to say, ‘featuring children from the Italia Conti school of dance’ and I remember saying to my mum, that’s where I want to go,” she laughs.

“So I  did. I was 14 - oh my god - in London, and it was a great experience."

She adds, with a smile: “I never did make it on to the variety shows, though.”

After returning to Scotland, Christina studied acting at Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh, and since then has worked all over the country and around the world.

Known primarily for her stage work, in the likes of Aladdin at Perth Theatre, Shopping for Shoes with Visible Fictions and Macbeth (National Theatre of Scotland), she has also had roles in TV and film, including the Dougray Scott film New Town Killers.

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“Acting has taken me to Alaska, to Milan, all over,” she explains. “Then I took a break when my children were born, and now they are both older, I have come back into it.

“The roles I play now are very different of course. Lovely roles, a slower pace maybe. But so interesting.”

She laughs: “I’ve even recently played a grandmother….”

Christina lives in Kirkcaldy with her husband - the actor Antony Strachan - and their daughters Peggy, 14 and 11-year-old Mabel, but Glasgow has a special place in her heart.

“I’ve done a few plays at Oran Mor, and you cannot get a better audience than A Play, A Pie and A Pint,” she says. “They are so warm and generous, it’s an actor’s dream. Coming back to Glasgow feels like coming home.”

Forever Home, featuring music by Alan Penman, also stars Kirsty Findlay and Chloe Hodgson. It runs from September 4 to 9 at Oran Mor.