British screenwriter and playwright Jack Thorne, best known for Adolescence and His Dark Materials, has been elected president of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB).
Thorne, who also wrote Help, This Is England ’90 and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, steps into the role vacated by Sandi Toksvig at the union, which represents professional writers in TV, film, theatre, audio, books, comedy, poetry, animation and video games across the U.K. WGGB negotiates better pay and conditions, lobbying and campaigning on a broad range of issues to ensure writers’ rights are protected.
“This is such a huge honour for me,” said Thorne. “I think the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain is a union to be hugely proud of. I was proud of it from the outside and I’m delighted to now fight for it from the inside. And I do think we’re about to be in the battle of our lives. The landscape for writers is brutal right now, and the conservatism that has crept in to commissioning is vital to combat.”
He continued: “But more than all that, there are people coming after our copyright, vultures who’d steal it to put into their machines and we need to make sure the government is robust in defending us. As a kid I went on marches with my parents where we’d chant, ‘Together, united, we’ll never be defeated,’ and I do think these next few years are going to be about us all working together to fight.
Thorne began writing for television in the late 2000s, with early credits on E4’s Skins and Channel 4’s Shameless. His collaboration with Shane Meadows on the This Is England trilogy (’86, ’88, ’90) earned him widespread critical acclaim and multiple awards. His screen work spans genres and mediums, including the BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and BBC film Then Barbara Met Alan, which featured exclusively disabled talent.
Further TV writing credits include Help, Toxic Town, National Treasure, The Virtues, Kiri, The Last Panthers, Glue, The Accident, The Eddy, The Fades, Shameless and Cast Offs. In 2025, Thorne’s Netflix mini-series Adolescence became a global juggernaut, sailing to the top of streaming charts and sparking international conversation. His forthcoming projects include an adaptation of Lord of the Flies.