Jack Thorne: writing for stage, screen and disabled artists

Jack Thorne’s writing ranges from the magic of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to stories grounded in grief, disability and social inequality. A playwright, screenwriter and producer, he has worked across theatre, television, film and radio, often returning to the question of whose lives are represented and how. His career joins internationally successful entertainment to sustained work on disability and access in the creative industries.

From Bristol to Cambridge, with an early start in theatre

Thorne was born in Bristol on 6 December 1978. He attended St Bartholomew’s School in Newbury, Berkshire, before studying politics at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He matriculated in 1998, had to interrupt his studies in his third year because of ill health, then returned and graduated in 2002.

His professional writing career began in theatre. Fanny and Faggot, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2004, was followed by works including When You Cure Me at the Bush Theatre in 2005 and Stacy in 2007. In 2008, Burying Your Brother in the Pavement was part of the National Theatre’s Connections festival; 2 May 1997 followed at the Bush Theatre the next year. Bunny, staged in 2010, won a Fringe First at Edinburgh.

Thorne’s plays also include Hope, staged at the Royal Court in 2014, and The Motive and the Cue, which opened at the National Theatre in 2023 before transferring to the West End. In 2017 he adapted A Christmas Carol for the Old Vic; the production returned in subsequent years. His stage adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, based on an original story by Thorne, J. K. Rowling and John Tiffany, opened in London in 2016. It later played in other cities, including New York, Melbourne and San Francisco.

Writing across television, film and radio

Alongside his theatre work, Thorne wrote for television series including Shameless and Skins. His collaboration with director Shane Meadows on This Is England developed into three connected television series: This Is England ’86, ’88 and ’90. The work brought the characters and world of the film into longer-form drama. In 2012, Thorne won BAFTAs for The Fades and This Is England ’88.

His television credits range from the supernatural drama The Fades and the fantasy series His Dark Materials to the socially focused National Treasure, Don’t Take My Baby and Help. The last, set and filmed in Liverpool, follows disabled people and carers during the Covid-19 pandemic; it won the Rose d’Or for best drama in 2021. In 2022, Thorne co-wrote Then Barbara Met Alan with Genevieve Barr. The television drama tells the story of disabled campaigners Barbara Lisicki and Alan Holdsworth and the movement for disability rights. In 2023, Best Interests brought a family’s difficult decisions about their daughter’s medical care to the screen.

Thorne has also written and co-written films. His credits include The Scouting Book for Boys, which won him best newcomer at the 2009 London Film Festival, Wonder, The Aeronauts, Radioactive and Enola Holmes. He co-wrote The Swimmers, about two sisters fleeing Syria, and Joy, the story of three British scientists involved in the development of IVF. His radio writing includes People Snogging in Public Places, which won a Sony Radio Academy Award in 2010, and A Summer Night, a response to the 2011 London riots, broadcast live as part of the Free Thinking festival.

Disability, representation and access

Thorne’s interest in disability is part of his own experience as well as his writing. He has described developing cholinergic urticaria at 20, a condition that causes chronic pain and made heat difficult to tolerate. Ill health interrupted his university studies. After attending an open day at the Graeae Theatre Company, he spoke of recognising disability as part of his identity; he later became a patron of the company.

That experience informs a body of work that includes The Solid Life of Sugar Water, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2015 and was staged at the National Theatre the following year. Produced by Graeae and Theatre Royal Plymouth, it follows a couple living with the aftermath of a stillbirth. Other projects addressing disability include Don’t Take My Baby, CripTales and Then Barbara Met Alan. The range matters: these works take disability into different dramatic forms, rather than treating it as a single story.

In his 2021 MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Thorne challenged television’s inadequate representation of disabled people and the barriers disabled artists face in the industry. He announced the pressure group Underlying Health Condition with Genevieve Barr and Katie Player. The group’s work helped lead to the TV Access Project, through which major broadcasters and streamers committed to improving the inclusion of deaf, disabled and neurodivergent talent by 2030. Its practical initiatives include access guidance, training and support for early-career disabled workers. In 2024, the project’s ten members announced plans to boycott studios and production spaces that failed to complete its accessibility audit by August 2025.

Recognition and reach

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child received the Olivier Award for best new play and the Tony Award for best play. Thorne’s television work has earned several BAFTAs, including awards for The Fades, This Is England ’88, Don’t Take My Baby, This Is England ’90 and National Treasure. He has also received Royal Television Society awards and a fellowship from the society. The prizes mark success in markedly different forms: stage spectacle, television serials and single dramas.

His writing for the theatre has continued alongside screen work. When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, about the BBC during the 1926 General Strike, opened at the Donmar Warehouse in 2023. That same year, The Motive and the Cue examined the making of a production of Hamlet. Such works place British institutions and cultural history on stage, while other projects adapt books, films and stories for new audiences.

Why Jack Thorne deserves a place in British Legacy

Thorne’s place in British Legacy rests on the breadth of his contribution and on the way that breadth connects popular culture with questions of representation. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child became a major British stage production with an international life, while the BAFTA-winning This Is England series extended a film into a sustained account of people and place. His work in theatre, television, film and radio demonstrates how British writers can move between forms without leaving behind either large audiences or difficult subjects.

His writing about disability is matched by advocacy aimed at changing the conditions in which creative work is made. Plays and screen dramas including The Solid Life of Sugar Water, Help and Then Barbara Met Alan bring disabled characters and campaigners into the foreground. The TV Access Project adds a practical dimension: its access standards, training and support seek to improve opportunities for disabled talent behind the camera as well as on screen. That combination of storytelling and industry action gives Thorne’s legacy particular weight. It links the work audiences see with efforts to make British television and theatre more accessible to the people who create it.

Sources

Jack Thorne — revision 1379342493 · Jack Thorne

Adapted in part from Jack Thorne by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.