Mark Ravenhill: a playwright in constant motion
From Shopping and Fucking to music theatre and The Cane, Ravenhill has repeatedly changed the forms through which British drama examines its present.
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Ella Hickson: writing women, power and a changing world
From her award-winning debut Eight to Oil and The Writer, the British playwright has made contemporary questions central to work staged across the country.
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Laura Wade: comedy, class and the shape of domestic life
From Posh to Home, I’m Darling, the playwright uses comic drama to examine privilege, gender and the ideals people choose to live by.
Read the entryJack Thorne: writing across stage and screen
From The Solid Life of Sugar Water to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Jack Thorne has built a career spanning British theatre, television and film, alongside sustained advocacy for disabled artists.
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James Graham: Parliament, power and the stories Britain tells
From This House and Ink to Dear England, the playwright and screenwriter turns political history into drama.
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J. B. Priestley: time, theatre and social responsibility
From Bradford novels to wartime radio and An Inspector Calls, Priestley made questions of society and time part of British public life.
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Simon Stephens: writing for the stage, from Stockport to the world
From Port and Punk Rock to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Stephens has built a wide-ranging career as a playwright, teacher and advocate for new writing.
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Zinnie Harris: political questions on the stage
The Scottish playwright brings questions of displacement, power and financial crisis into dramas rooted in personal lives.
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Roy Williams: theatre shaped by race, class and belonging
From Fulham and youth theatre to the National Theatre, Williams has made sport and social identity central to a wide-ranging writing career.
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Abi Morgan: writing the intimate and the political
From plays including Tiny Dynamite and Lovesong to The Hour, The Split and major film screenplays, Morgan has built a career across British theatre, television and cinema.
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Dennis Potter: the playwright who changed television drama
From the Forest of Dean to influential BBC serials, Potter made memory, music and fantasy part of television’s dramatic language.
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David Greig: theatre shaped by connection and distance
The Scottish playwright and director moves between intimate relationships, political argument and stories that cross borders.
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Alistair Beaton: political satire across stage, screen and radio
The Glasgow-born playwright has turned political spin, monarchy and corporate power into comedy, while working across television, radio, fiction and translation.
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James Graham: bringing British politics to the stage
From This House and Ink to television drama, Graham turns political history and public life into stories for theatre and screen.
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Sabrina Mahfouz: writing across stage, page and performance
The British-Egyptian poet, playwright and performer has moved between theatre, poetry, radio and television, with works including Dry Ice, Chef and With a Little Bit of Luck.
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Mark Ravenhill
The English playwright has moved from the confrontational force of Shopping and Fucking to work across theatre, opera, television and performance.
Read the entryHanif Kureishi: writing Britain through race, class and desire
From My Beautiful Laundrette to The Buddha of Suburbia, Kureishi’s work has examined the tensions and possibilities of modern British life.
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Timberlake Wertenbaker
The playwright uses history and myth to explore authority, punishment and whose voices are heard.
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Michael Frayn: comedy, uncertainty and the life of ideas
From Noises Off to Copenhagen, Frayn brought comic precision and philosophical curiosity to British theatre, while also building a substantial career as a novelist, translator and essayist.
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Torben Betts: writing comedy, politics and human conflict
From the Stephen Joseph Theatre to international productions, the English playwright has moved between dark social comedy and poetic drama.
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Caryl Churchill
Famed for her innovative and feminist plays, including "Top Girls" and "Cloud Nine."
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Alexi Kaye Campbell: plays of identity, history and family
From The Pride to Apologia, the Greek-British playwright’s work has moved between the politics of sexuality and the tensions of family life.
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Inua Ellams: stories shaped across borders and stages
The Nigerian-born poet and playwright brings migration, community and African diasporic life to British theatre and literature.
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Jack Thorne: writing for stage, screen and disabled artists
From Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to dramas about disability and family life, the Bristol-born writer has built a varied career across British theatre and television.
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Winsome Pinnock: writing British lives on stage
From Leave Taking to award-winning later work, Pinnock has brought complex stories of identity, history and belonging into British theatre.
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Martin Crimp: a playwright who unsettles the shape of a play
From the Royal Court’s Attempts on Her Life to operas with George Benjamin, Crimp has made formal experiment a defining part of his work.
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Christopher Hampton: a life in theatre, film and translation
From his early Royal Court plays to award-winning screen adaptations, Hampton has carried stories between stages, languages and audiences.
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Alistair McDowall
In Pomona and X, unfamiliar settings expose the pressures of isolation, uncertainty and human connection.
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Tarell Alvin McCraney
The American playwright’s work reached British stages through the Royal Court, the Young Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
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Moira Buffini
A playwright and screenwriter whose work brings questions of power, history and allegiance to stage and screen.
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Kwame Kwei-Armah: playwright, performer and theatre leader
From Elmina’s Kitchen to the Young Vic, his work has carried British stories of identity, history and belonging onto major stages.
Read the entryNina Raine: theatre shaped by language, family and law
The English playwright and director has written for major British stages, exploring communication, belonging and the tensions between legal argument and private life.
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Philip Ridley: a storyteller across stage, screen and page
From The Pitchfork Disney to children’s fiction and film, the East London artist has worked across forms without confining himself to one.
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David Storey: novelist, playwright and professional rugby player
From Wakefield and the rugby league field to the Booker Prize and the Royal Court, Storey made working-class lives central to his fiction and drama.
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Richard Bean: comedy, work and the British stage
From Hull and occupational psychology to the National Theatre, Richard Bean has written plays that range from farce to contentious public debate.
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Howard Brenton: theatre and the politics of power
From early experimental plays to The Romans in Britain and Never So Good, Howard Brenton has repeatedly brought political conflict to the British stage.
Read the entryMike Bartlett: writing the present for stage and screen
From the Royal Court to the National Theatre and television, Bartlett has made contemporary conflicts the material of British drama.
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Patrick Marber
From British comedy to internationally performed plays, Marber has moved between writing, acting and directing.
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Rona Munro: writing Scotland’s past and present
The Scottish playwright moves between intimate human dramas, contemporary conflict and a multi-part history of the Stewart kings.
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Edward Albee: the American playwright on British stages
From Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to three Pulitzer-winning plays, Albee’s work travelled from American theatre to British audiences.
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