Jack Thorne Biography

Jack Thorne (born 6 December 1978) is an English screenwriter and playwright.

Born in Bristol, England, he has written for radio, theatre and film, most notably on the TV shows Skins, Cast-offs, This Is England '86, This Is England '88, This Is England '90, The Fades and the feature film The Scouting Book for Boys. He currently lives in Luton.

Background

Thorne was educated at St. Bartholomew's School, Newbury, Berkshire.

Theatre

Thorne's plays for stage include When You Cure Me (Bush Theatre, 2005), Fanny and Faggot (Finborough Theatre and tour 2007), Stacy (Arcola Theatre and Trafalgar Studios, 2007), Burying Your Brother in the Pavement (Royal National Theatre Connections Festival 2008), 2 May 1997 (Bush Theatre 2009) and Bunny (Underbelly and tour 2010) which won a Fringe First at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival. He also collaborated on Greenland (2011) with Moira Buffini, Penelope Skinner and Matt Charman at the National Theatre.

In 2011 he participated in the Bush Theatre's project Sixty Six Books, for which he wrote a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible.

In 2012 his version of Friedrich Duerrenmatt's The Physicists was staged at the Donmar Warehouse.

His 2013 adaptation of the book and film Let The Right One In was staged in a production by the National Theatre of Scotland at Dundee Rep Theatre, London's Royal Court Theatre, West End and New York's St. Ann's Warehouse.

His plays are published by Nick Hern Books.

In summer 2015, his play The Solid Life of Sugar Water premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, produced by Graeae Theatre Company and Theatre Royal Plymouth. The same production will tour in spring 2016, with a run at the National Theatre in March 2016.

It was confirmed in June 2015 that he would be involved with the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Television

Thorne has written for the TV shows Skins and Shameless. He co-created Cast-offs (nominated Royal Television Society Best Drama series 2010), and has co-written This Is England '86 and This Is England '88 with Shane Meadows. In August 2010 BBC Three announced Thorne would be writing a 60-minute, six episode supernatural drama for the channel called Touch, later retitled The Fades. In 2012 he won Bafta awards for both drama series (The Fades) and serial (This Is England '88). Don't Take My Baby BBC 3. He is currently working on a new Channel 4 drama called National Treasure, which will start filming in January 2016.

Radio

Thorne has written four plays for radio; an adaptation of When You Cure Me (BBC Radio 3, 2006), Left at the Angel (BBC Radio 4, 2007), an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (co-written with Alex Bulmer, BBC Radio 4, 2009) and People Snogging in Public Places (BBC Radio 3, 2009). The latter won him the Sony Radio Academy Awards Gold for Best Drama 2010. The judges described it "as a wonderfully written and performed, highly original piece of radio drama in which the production perfectly mirrored the subject. Painful and funny, it was a bold exciting listen." A Summer Night (BBC Radio 3, 2011) was Thorne's response to the 2011 London riots, transmitted live as part of the Free Thinking festival.

In 2012, People Snogging in Public Places was produced and broadcast by France-Culture (in the Fictions / Drles de drames slot) under the French title of Regarder passer les trains (translator: Jacqueline Chnour).

Film

Thorne's first film The Scouting Book For Boys was released in 2009, it won him Best Newcomer at the London Film Festival. The jury said, "Jack Thorne is a poetic writer with an end-of-the-world imagination and a real gift for story-telling."