National Treasure

Jack Thorne on screenwriting, fatherhood and His Dark Materials

Iorek Byrnison (Joe Tandberg) and Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen) (Credit: BBC/Bad Wolf/HBO)

‘Rachel doesn’t let me cycle,” laughs writer Jack Thorne as I am leaving his north London home following our interview. Rachel is his wife, a comedy agent and keen cyclist herself, who laughs back: “Yes, he’d just be cycling along and have a script idea and that would be that.”

RTS winners unite for new Channel 4 crime drama Kiri

Sarah Lancashire RTS Programme Awards 2013-14

Happy Valley actor Sarah Lancashire stars as social worker Miriam who is thrust into the spotlight when a child in her care, Kiri, is abducted and killed after an unsupervised visit to her biological family. The no-nonsense social worker loves and believes in her job, but has a maverick and instinctive approach to dealing with the children she looks after, which draws attention as the media buzz intensifies.

Miriam (Lancashire) and the families at the centre of the storm are forced to ask tough questions, not just of themselves, but of those they love the most.  

National Treasure writer Jack Thorne talks His Dark Materials and Harry Potter

“We all knew the gravity of what we were taking on,” says Jack Thorne, the screenwriter of Channel 4’s powerful drama National Treasure.

The show follows fictional light entertainment star Paul Finchley (RTS Award nominee Robbie Coltrane), who is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl many years earlier.

The show, coming from Finchley’s perspective, looks at the impact of the accusation, not only on the victim, but also on the accused and their family.