Karen Meagher is an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 actress, sometimes credited as Karen Meacher.

Her first acting role was playing a skivvy

Maid

A maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.-Description:Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case...

 in the 1979 television series The Mallens

The Mallens

The Mallens was a popular Granada Television adaptation of Catherine Cookson novels that ran for 13 episodes from 1979-1980.- Plot summary :Based on the novels The Mallen Streak,The Mallen Girl and the Mallen Litter...

. This was followed by role playing teacher Miss Broom in BBC TV's '80s childrens programme 'Johnny Briggs'.

She also played Lou Beale

Lou Beale

Louise Ada "Lou" Beale is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Anna Wing. The character is played by Karen Meagher in the 1988 EastEnders special, Civvy Street, set during the Second World War....

 in the EastEnders

EastEnders

EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...

special Civvy Street, a spin-off that was filmed in 1988 but set in 1942.

Karen Meagher is best known in Britain for the role of Ruth Beckett in the 1984 BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 TV Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

drama Threads

Threads

Threads is a British television drama produced by the BBC in 1984. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, it is a documentary-style account of a nuclear war and its effects on the city of Sheffield in northern England....

. At the time she was a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...

and was passionately committed to making a statement about the dangers of nuclear war

Nuclear warfare

Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...

 in the United Kingdom . She also later appeared in a film outlining the risks attached to nuclear power

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

; Chernobyl

Chernobyl

Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....

: The Final Warning.

Since then she has had many television and film roles including playing Inspector Murchison in Heartbeat, Miss Broom in Jonny Briggs

Jonny Briggs

Jonny Briggs is a Children's BBC television programme first broadcast in 1985. It revolves around the exploits of a young boy, the eponymous hero, his pet dog, Razzle, and his eccentric family members: Mam and Dad, older sister Rita and older brothers Albert and Humph . Another older sister is...

, and Grace Poole in a recent adaption of Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 postcolonial parallel novel by Dominica-born author Jean Rhys. Since her previous work, Good Morning, Midnight, was published in 1939, Rhys had lived in obscurity. Wide Sargasso Sea put Rhys into the limelight once more, and became her most successful novel.The novel...

, as well as smaller roles in Dalziel and Pascoe

Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC TV series)

Dalziel and Pascoe is a popular British television crime drama based on the Dalziel and Pascoe books by Reginald Hill, which was first broadcast in March 1996. It is set in Yorkshire, and is about two detectives...

, Carrie's War

Carrie's War

Carrie's War is a 1973 children's novel by Nina Bawden, set during the Second World War and following two evacuees, Carrie and her younger brother Nick. It is a common fixture in secondary schools.-Plot:...

, Down to Earth

Down to Earth (UK TV series)

Down to Earth was a BBC One television series first broadcast in 2000 about a couple who start a new life on a Devon farm. The early episodes of the series were based on a series of books written by Faith Addis about their real-life move from London to Devon.The music in the series was composed by...

, Doctors

Doctors (BBC Soap Opera)

Doctors is a British daytime television soap opera, set in the fictional Midland town of Letherbridge, defined as being close to the City of Birmingham. It was created by Chris Murray; Mal Young drove its development, and Carson Black was the original producer. The first episode was broadcast on...

, The Bill

The Bill

The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...

and Bad Girls

Bad Girls (TV series)

Bad Girls is an award-winning British television drama series that was broadcast on ITV from 1999 to 2006. It is produced by Shed Productions, the company which later produced Footballers' Wives and Waterloo Road...

.

She appeared in the 2007 run of Equus

Equus (play)

Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses....

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's Gielgud Theatre

Gielgud Theatre

The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, London, at the corner of Rupert Street. The house currently has 889 seats on three levels.-History:...

 as the nurse. She also understudied Jenny Agutter

Jenny Agutter

Jennifer Ann "Jenny" Agutter is an English film and television actress. She began her career as a child actress in the mid 1960s, starring in the BBC television series The Railway Children and the film adaptation of the same book, before moving on to adult roles and relocating to Hollywood.She...

 and Gabrielle Reidy's parts.

External links