Thorne was born in Bristol on 6 December 1978. He was educated at St Bartholomew's School in Newbury, Berkshire, and matriculated in 1998 at Pembroke College, Cambridge.[1] 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.[2]
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. 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.[13] Together with the composer Stephen Warbeck, Thorne wrote Junkyard, a coming-of-age musical centred around 'The Vench', an adventure playground in Lockleaze, Bristol.[14]
Thorne has written for the TV shows Skins and Shameless. He co-created Cast Offs,[17] and has co-written This Is England '86,This Is England '88, This Is England '90, and The Virtues with Shane Meadows.[18][19] Thorne was also in the running to write an episode for the fifth series of Doctor Who, but amicably parted ways with the production.[20] In August 2010, BBC Three announced Thorne would be writing a 60-minute, six episode supernatural drama for the channel called Touch, later re-titled The Fades.[21][22] In 2012, he won BAFTA awards for both drama series (The Fades) and serial (This Is England '88).[23][24] In 2014, Thorne's original rural teen murder drama Glue premiered on E4 and the show was nominated Best Multichannel Programme and the 2015 Broadcast Awards. In autumn of 2015 This Is England '90 transmitted on Channel 4 and earned Thorne a Best Series Award at the Jameson Empire Awards 2016 and the BAFTA for Best-Mini Series in 2016. Next, the pan-European diamond heist thriller for Sky Atlantic The Last Panthers, which aired in the UK in September 2015 was BAFTA nominated for Best Drama Series. To round up a hat-trick of nominations at the 2016 BAFTA TV Awards, Thorne's BBC 3 drama Don't Take My Baby was nominated and went on to win the BAFTA for Best Single Drama. Thorne's Channel 4 drama National Treasure started on 20 September 2016 and won the BAFTA for Best Mini-Series in 2017.[25]
In 2021, Thorne wrote the television film Help. Set and filmed in Liverpool, Help focused on the plight of disabled people and their carers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and addressed the multitude of ways in which Boris Johnson's government had failed them. It was acclaimed by critics, with Carol Midgley of The Times calling it "a shaming nightmare [that] all ministers should see",[33] and won Best Drama at the 2021 Rose d'Or Awards.
In 2022, Thorne co-wrote Then Barbara Met Alan with Genevieve Barr, the true story of Barbara Lisicki and Alan Holdsworth, the founders of DAN (Disabled People's Direct Action Network). It tells the story of two disabled cabaret performers who meet at a gig in 1989, fall in love and, driven by their own experiences and the experiences of those around them of discrimination, mistreatment, and the realities of living in an ableist society, lead protests nationwide, eventually leading to the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Then Barbara Met Alan was received to both popular and critical acclaim, with Frances Ryan of The Guardian saying "By the time the real-life Barbara was on screen in the final scene – with a ramp symbolically coming out of a bus to finally give her entry – I was crying. For what we gained. For what was taken from us for decades, and still is. For the campaigners who gave so much for my generation and those that do today. Roar in the streets and kiss your lover. This is what disability looks like – and the battle continues."[34]
In 2023, it was announced Thorne would write a television adaptation of Lord of the Flies.[35] On August 10, 2023, it was announced Thorne would write Toxic Town, a series dramatizing the Corby toxic waste scandal. It will be executive produced by Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones.[36]
Radio
Thorne has written four plays for radio; an adaptation of When You Cure Me (BBC Radio 3, 2006[37]), Left at the Angel (BBC Radio 4, 2007[38]), an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (co-written with Alex Bulmer, BBC Radio 4, 2009[39]) and People Snogging in Public Places (BBC Radio 3, 2009[40]). The latter won him the Sony Radio Academy Awards Gold for Best Drama 2010.[41] 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."[42]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 / Drôles de drames slot) under the French title of Regarder passer les trains (translator: Jacqueline Chnéour).
Thorne also co-wrote the 2019 film The Aeronauts with Tom Harper for Amazon Studios, starring Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne. Although Amazon does not release exact streaming figures, Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios said in an interview with Deadline Hollywood that as of January 2020 The Aeronauts was the most viewed movie of all time on Amazon Prime.[52]
Thorne has been a long-term advocate for the disabled community in the dramatic arts. After he developed cholinergic urticaria when he was 20 years old, he became allergic to outdoor heat, artificial heat, and his own body heat. This gave him chronic pain that forced him to leave university and spend much of his early twenties in bed.[54] Despite this, he felt unsure whether he could identify as a disabled person; after attending a Graeae Theatre Company open day (which he described as the "National Theatre of disability") three years after his diagnosis, he was accepted with open arms. He described the incident as a "coming out moment" and a "crucial part" of who he is. He has since written disabled dramas The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Spastic King, Cast Offs, The Solid Life of Sugar Water, Don't Take My Baby, and CripTales, and has become a patron of the Graeae Theatre Company.
In August 2021, Thorne delivered the Edinburgh TV Festival's prestigious MacTaggart Lecture.[54] He used the speech to discuss television's power as an "empathy box" in the living room of millions and its failings for neglecting a large and vibrant part of the populace by poorly representing the disabled community. Thorne points to the great suffering of disabled people during the COVID-19 pandemic in which the media rendered huge amounts of unnecessary deaths acceptable through usage of the term "underlying health condition".[54] The speech also outlined how television industry practice has been discriminatory towards disabled artists, and the dire need for the industry to commit to change, both off-screen and on; alongside Genevieve Barr and Katie Player, Thorne announced a pressure group called Underlying Health Condition which aims to elevate disabled voices in the industry. Thorne argues that more disabled stories written by disabled people and performed by disabled people would make visible what's invisible in the "empathy box" in the homes of the public and cause change to happen.
On 3 December 2021, Underlying Health Condition was launched at an event at the Tate Modern, collaborating with other disability organisations such as Disabled Artists Networking Community, the Creative Diversity Network and 1in4 Coalition, to propose a series of requirements and measures to accommodate and support disabled artists in television.[55][56]
Personal life
Thorne is married to Rachel Mason. They have one son, Elliott, who was named after the human protagonist of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. He and Mason underwent multiple attempts at IVF to have their son, the experience later leading them to develop the film Joy.[57] His wife's sister Cath is the long-term partner of the comedian Frank Skinner[58]
In 2022, Thorne was diagnosed as being autistic. He was inspired to seek diagnosis following a question on Desert Island Discs.[59]
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