[citation needed] Shaun McKenna's early theatre plays include Killing Camille (Paines Plough, Old Red Lion 1990, a rehearsed reading directed by Kathy Burke).
He began an association with Michael Napier Brown at the Royal Theatre in Northampton for whom he adapted Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley (1990)[1] in which Aled Jones made his acting debut, and R. F. Delderfield's To Serve Them All My Days (1992).
[1] He wrote the book for Ben Hur Live, based on the novel by Lew Wallace shown at the O2 arena in September 2009, and in a revised version at the Fiera di Roma, Rome in 2011.
[4] In 2014 his stage adaptation of Peter James's novella The Perfect Murder toured the UK,[5] from January to April 2014 with Les Dennis and Claire Goose, and with Robert Daws and Dawn Steele from September 2014.
In 2019, Shaun's fourth Peter James adaptation The House On Cold Hill toured the UK with a cast led by Joe McFadden, Rita Simons and Charlie Clements.
McKenna's fifth Peter James adaptation, Looking Good Dead, began a long UK tour in Leicester in June 2021 and, ended in April 2022.
The next play in the series Wish You Were Dead began a UK tour in February 2023, starring Clive Mantle, Giovanna Fletcher and George Rainsford as Roy Grace.
McKenna wrote book and lyrics for the stage adaptation of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (Toronto 2006, West End 2007)[12] with Matthew Warchus.
[15] In 2005 McKenna and Stephen Keeling wrote Heidi, entwining the famous children's story and the life of its creator Johanna Spyri, which was first performed in an open-air production in Walenstadt, Switzerland.
The One True Thing, a prequel, has been commissioned[16] He co-wrote Murder Mystery Musical[17] with Alister Cameron and composer Richard Brown, which was performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2009.
The cast was led by Katie Elin Salt as fictional diva Peggy Starr, Bill Ward as husband Bob and Emma Thornett as her sister, Janet.
In July 2021 BBC Radio 4 broadcast his two-part reworking of a Henry Fielding novel, Joseph Andrews Remixed[28] with a cast led by Max Bennett, Lyndsey Marshal, Angus Imrie and Michael Bertenshaw.
McKenna spent much of 2018 writing China Towns, an eleven hour BBC Radio 4 series based on five novels by Arnold Bennett which was broadcast over six weekend in 2019 and is now available on Audible.
Each episode is set exactly one hundred years before the date of transmission, and centres on a single character's story of life at home during the Great War.