杰克·索恩

Jack Thorne (born 6 December 1978) is a British playwright, screenwriter, and producer. His accolades include a Golden Globe, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and six BAFTA Awards.

Thorne is best known for writing the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016), the films Wonder (2017), Enola Holmes (2020) and the latter's sequel (2022), and the television programme His Dark Materials (2019–2022). Between 2010 and 2015, Thorne co-wrote three connected mini-series based on the film This Is England – This Is England '86, This Is England '88 and This Is England '90 – with director Shane Meadows.

In 2023, Thorne's four-part mini-series Best Interests was released starring Michael Sheen and Sharon Horgan. It was nominated for several awards, winning Best Limited Series at the Banff Rockie Awards.

Thorne's two 2025 mini-series, Toxic Town and Adolescence, were released on Netflix to widespread critical acclaim.

In 2026, the first ever TV series adaptation of William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies was released with Thorne serving as screenwriter, which received positive reviews.

Early life and education

Thorne was born in Bristol on 6 December 1978. He was educated at St Bartholomew's School in Newbury, Berkshire, and studied politics at Pembroke College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1998. He was forced to "degrade" (drop out to return at a later date) due to ill health in his third year, but returned to finish his studies and graduated with lower second-class honours in 2002.

Career

Theatre

Thorne's plays for the stage include When You Cure Me (Bush Theatre 2005), Fanny and Faggot (Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2004, 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), Bunny (Underbelly and tour 2010) which won a Fringe First at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival and Hope (Royal Court Theatre, 2014). 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.

Thorne's 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. 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, it then toured in early 2016, with a run at the National Theatre in March 2016. Together with the composer Stephen Warbeck, Thorne wrote Junkyard, a coming-of-age musical centred around 'The Vench', an adventure playground in Lockleaze, Bristol.

Thorne wrote the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, based on an original story by Thorne, J. K. Rowling and John Tiffany, which is running at the Palace Theatre in London's West End since August 2016, on Broadway at the Lyric Theatre since April 2018, in Melbourne's Princess Theatre since February 2019 and San Francisco's Curran Theatre since December 2019. Thorne also wrote a new adaptation of Woyzeck by Georg Büchner for the Old Vic in 2017 with John Boyega in the title role. He wrote a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens for the Old Vic for the Christmas 2017 season, directed by Matthew Warchus, which has subsequently returned every year, as well as for the 2019 season on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre and the 2020 live broadcast through Old Vic: On Camera due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2025, A Christmas Carol returned to New York for an Off-Broadway run at the Perelman Performing Arts Center. Thorne rewrote the musical adaptation of King Kong for its 2018 Broadway debut. Thorne penned the play the end of history for Royal Court Theatre in 2019, starring David Morrissey and Lesley Sharp. Thorne's play Sunday premiered at Atlantic Theatre Company in New York in 2019, directed by Lee Sunday Evans. In June 2021, his adaptation of After Life based on the film of the same name opened at the National Theatre, London.

In April 2023, Thorne's play The Motive and the Cue, directed by Sam Mendes, about the making of Richard Burton and John Gielgud's Hamlet, opened in the Lyttleton Theatre at the National Theatre, before transferring to the Noël Coward Theatre in the West End in December 2023. In June 2023, his play When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, directed by Katy Rudd, about the BBC during the 1926 General Strike, premiered at the Donmar Warehouse. In November 2023, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel to the Netflix Series by Kate Trefry with a story by Thorne, Trefry and The Duffer Brothers and directed by Stephen Daldry, opened at the Phoenix Theatre, London.

Thorne's plays are published by Nick Hern Books.