Jack Thorne Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent With an International Panorama spangled by gems  – think Spain’s “Apagón,” Sweden’s “Blackwater,” and Canada’s “Disobey” and “Little Bird” – Series Mania also weighs in this year with one, if not the, strongest and most mouthwatering of international competitions in its history.  Including the opening and closing series, Amazon’s “Greek Salad” and Netflix’s “Transatlantic,” nearly all the global streamers have titles in the lineup, from Apple TV+’s “Drops of God” and Paramount+’s “Fleeting Lies.” The lineup also features some A-List international writing talents, such as the U.K.’s Jack Thorne and Israel’s Ron Leshem and Amit Cohen, whose “The Virtues” and “No Man’s Land” rank among the most memorable of recent Series Mania competition titles, and closing the festival, out of competition, “Unorthodox’s” Anna Wenger.”Fleeting Lies” also represents one of the first series from Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar’s El Deseo label in Madrid, opening series “Greek Salad” Cedric Klapisch’s first works a TV series creator.

Hannah Abraham Guest Contributor A virtual panel organized by Channel 4 has shed light on the findings of the recent Access into Action Industry Access Survey. The Wednesday panel was moderated by Channel 4 journalist Jordan Jarrett-Bryan, and included well-known industry figures like screenwriter Jack Thorne and producer Bryony Arnold. The Access into Action survey was conducted in late 2022 as a joint effort by Channel 4 and Amazon Studios U.K. as part of an ongoing effort to increase accessibility and inclusion in Britain’s entertainment industry. The anonymous questionnaire surveyed 105 organizations spanning production companies, broadcasters and streamers. The findings have revealed troubling statistics, like the fact that 25% of surveyed establishments were physically inaccessible, and the same proportion had no functioning accessible toilets. While acknowledging that 75% of respondents rented their production offices, Channel 4 Disability Lead Ally Castle stated that this could be a stepping stone for future conversations with landlords regarding improvements in building accessibility.

EbonyLife CEO Mo Abudu and execs from Starz, DreamWorks Animations and Universal International Studios are leading the jury for the Banff World Media Festival, which has unveiled nominations for its Rockie Awards.

Stranger Things is officially coming to London’s West End. Check out a teaser below for the play set a quarter of a century before the Netflix smash.

Ellise Shafer “Stranger Things” is coming to London’s West End. Netflix announced on Tuesday that “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a stage play spinoff of the wildly popular series, will world premiere at the Phoenix Theatre later this year. The play, which is “rooted in the mythology” of the Netflix show, was written by “Stranger Things” writer and co-executive producer Kate Trefry from an original story by the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne and Trefry. The production will be helmed by Tony-winning director Stephen Daldry, with co-direction from Justin Martin. “Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries. Young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town. When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy… and the shadows of the past have a very long reach,” the play’s synopsis reads. “Brought to life by a multi-award-winning creative team, who take theatrical storytelling and stagecraft to a whole new dimension, this gripping new adventure will take you right back to the beginning of the ‘Stranger Things’ story – and may hold the key to the end.”

A stage-play adaptation of the hit Netflix franchise “Stranger Things” will premiere in London’s West End later this year, the streamer said Wednesday.Based on an original story by the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne and Kate Trefry, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” will be set in the 1950s as an origin story that “will take you right back to the beginning of the ‘Stranger Things’ story – and may hold the key to the end.” The play, written by Trefry, a writer and co-executive producer for the TV series, will be rooted in the mythology and world of the Netflix global phenomenon.“We are beyond excited about ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow,'” said the series’ creators, Matt and Ross Duffer. “Collaborating with the brilliant Stephen Daldry has been nothing short of inspiring, and Kate Trefry has written a play that is at turns surprising, scary, and heartfelt.

EXCLUSIVE: Hulu has acquired Daisy May Cooper’s hit BBC comedy-thriller Am I Being Unreasonable?

The winners have been revealed for the 2023 BAFTAs!

*WINNER.BEST FILM“All Quiet on the Western Front,” Malte Grunert“The Banshees of Inisherin,” Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh“Elvis,” Gail Berman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Patrick McCormick, Schuyler Weiss“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang“Tár,” Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra MilchanOUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM“Aftersun,” Charlotte Wells, Producer(s) TBC“The Banshees of Inisherin” Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin“Brian and Charles,” Jim Archer, Rupert Majendie, David Earl, Chris Hayward“Empire of Light,” Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” Sophie Hyde, Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski, Katy Brand“Living,” Oliver Hermanus, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Kazuo Ishiguro“Roald Dalh’s Matilda the Musical,” Matthew Warchus, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jon Finn, Luke Kelly, Dennis Kelly“See How They Run,” Tom George, Gina Carter, Damian Jones, Mark Chappell“The Swimmers,” Sally El Hosaini, Producer(s) TBC, Jack Thorne“The Wonder,” Sebastián Lelio, Ed Guiney, Juliette Howell, Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross, Alice Birch, Emma DonoghueOUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER“Aftersun,”  Charlotte Wells (Writer/Director)“Blue Jean,” Georgia Oakley (Writer/Director), Hélène Sifre (Producer)“Electric Malady,” Marie Lidén (Director)“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” Katy Brand (Writer)“Rebellion,” Maia Kenworthy (Director)FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE“All Quiet on the Western Front” Edward Berger, Malte Grunert *WINNER“Argentina, 1985,” Santiago Mitre, Producer(s) TBC“Corsage,” Marie Kreutzer“Decision to Leave,” Park Chan-wook, Ko Dae-seok“The Quiet Girl,” Colm Bairéad, Cleona Ní ChrualaoíDOCUMENTARY“All That Breathes,”

Broadway lost six productions on January 15 – including the top-grossing The Music Man – to the usual January roster-thinning, and each show went out on a happy note with strong attendance.

EXCLUSIVE: Help and The End of the F***ing World producer Jenny Frayn has joined the BBC drama commissioning team on a temporary basis.

Welcome back Insiders. Hope you’re feeling sufficiently rested and re-energized as the world of TV and film kicks back into gear. Jesse Whittock with you for the first edition of 2023, and we have plenty for you.

EXCLUSIVE: Sam Mendes has cast Johnny Flynn (Emma, Beast), Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey, Mank) and Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss to portray legendary stars Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and John Gielgud in The Motive and the Cue, a mouth-watering new play by Jack Thorne that explores how acting giants Burton and Gielgud staged Hamlet on Broadway in 1964.

Millie Bobby Brown is hoping that in the future she has an opportunity to play a “real person” and she revealed she would like to portray Britney Spears.

In Enola Holmes 2, a new game is afoot! And this time, it’s ripped straight from the history books. Following the theme of female empowerment from the first film in 2020, director Harry Bradbeer (Fleabag), writer Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials) and actress Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) felt it was important to highlight real stories about female oppression and liberation against the backdrop of the real-life matchgirls’ strike of 1888.

K.J. Yossman The Royal Television Society’s annual RTS Programme Awards have been set for March 28, 2023. The awards ceremony, which is held at Grosvenor House every year, always attracts a sea of bold-face names from the world of television. (Pictured above: Jodie Comer attending in 2019). Last year’s winners included “Help” writer Jack Thorne, “It’s a Sin” showrunner Russell T. Davies and comedian Graham Norton, who was honored with an award for Outstanding Contribution to British Television. Entries have now opened for next year’s awards, which include three new categories — Comedy Drama, Supporting Actor – Female and Supporting Actor – Male — in recognition of the supporting performances from the acting community over the past 12 months.

Manori Ravindran International Editor British TV industry leaders are set to convene at an event in celebration of deaf, disabled and neurodivergent talent that will address their lack of representation on screen and commit attendees to specific action points. Created by Bridge06 and Hot Coals Productions, the event — entitled About Time! — is positioned as a “call to action” for broadcasters, commissioners, casting agents, producers and agents — key roles that are central to improving the opportunities for deaf, disabled and neurodivergent creative communities. Taking place on Oct. 28 at BAFTA, the event will feature 10 working deaf, disabled and neurodivergent actors, musicians and performers and will be hosted by the BAFTA-nominated “Don’t Take My Baby” actor Ruth Madeley and “Coronation Street” star Cherylee Houston.

Jack Thorne has said he wanted to be involved in a film about a Syrian refugee who competed at the Olympics because there needs to be a change in attitudes. Netflix film The Swimmers is based on the inspirational true story of the Mardini sisters, who fled their war-torn home of Damascus in 2015 by boat and helped save the lives of their fellow refugees. The film will show how just a year after their treacherous journey, younger sister Yusra competed in swimming events at the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the Refugee Olympic team.

Narcos: Mexico has picked up two nominations at the International Emmy Awards 2022 and will battle with Lupin, Vigil and South Africa’s Reyka for the coveted Drama Series prize.

Netflix has released a new trailer for Enola Holmes 2 starring Millie Bobby Brown – check it out above.The actor reprises her role as the teenage sister of Sherlock Holmes in the sequel, alongside other returning cast members Henry Cavill as Sherlock, Louis Partridge as Viscount Tewkesbury and Helena Bonham Carter as Eudoria Holmes.New cast members include Adeel Akhtar (Utopia) as Lestrade, Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Bad Girls) and David Thewlis (The Sandman).Original director Harry Bradbeer has also helmed the sequel, from a screenplay penned by Jack Thorne.A synopsis for the sequel reads: “Enola’s newest adventure begins after a young girl working in a match factory hires her to locate her missing sister.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic At the end of “The Swimmers,” you could be excused for thinking that Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini won an Olympic gold medal. She didn’t. That’s not to detract from everything she and her older sister, Sara, went through to escape the Syrian civil war and reclaim their dreams of competitive swimming. It just means that director Sally El Hosaini and co-writer Jack Thorne didn’t know how else to wrap this inspirational true story, which is ideally suited for one of those 40-minute Oscar-grubbing documentary shorts but is stretched over three times that length (and then some) in this feel-good Toronto Film Fest opener. At a bloated 134 minutes, it’s not enough that co-leads (and real-life sisters) Nathalie and Manal Issa have great chemistry on-screen, or that the story reminds you of last year’s “Flee” and a dozen other true-life refugee stories. The gratuitous running time tells you something right off: There’s more than enough movie here even without the trip to the Rio Olympics, where Yusra placed 41st out of 45 in the 100-meter butterfly. But stretching it out this long is still liable to make your brain start to prune, the way fingers do when they spend too much time in water.

Variety’s top takeaways from the three-day festival:

Veep and The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci is still angry. In fact, he told delegates here at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday that he is “angrier than ever” at the direction of the UK’s politics and broadcasting, seven years after his blistering MacTaggart lecture urged the BBC to fight back against its critics and railed against a sale of Channel 4 — both topics now back on the agenda.

Naman Ramachandran Leading U.K.-based broadcasters have created the TV Access Project (TAP), a response to pressure group Underlying Health Condition’s (UHC) campaign to address disabled access across the TV industry in the U.K.

When His Dark Materials writer Jack Thorne stepped up to the Edinburgh TV Festival MacTaggart podium last year in an audience-less room, he wanted to address an issue that had felt hopelessly ignored in the mainstream through past decades.

EXCLUSIVE: Britain’s major broadcasters and streamers are taking a stand on “clear and disturbing” access issues impacting the industry’s disabled population and have demanded change from studios and post-production facilities.

Millie Bobby Brown is back on Netflix with 2 as the streamer confirmed the film sequel will make its debut on the platform on Friday, November 4. The Stranger Things star will not be up against demogorgons but will be on the hunt to crack a mystery.

K.J. Yossman Veteran interviewer Emily Maitlis is set to deliver this year’s James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival in Scotland.As a senior member of the BBC’s news team for over a decade, she has covered elections, interrogated Prime Ministers and interviewed numerous celebrities as well as anchoring evening news show “Newsnight” and hosting pdocast “Americast.” In her lecture she will address “the complex world of modern journalism where the threat to reporting the news and holding power to account across the globe, comes not just with intimidation and outright censorship, but in more nuanced ways with language and normalizing the extraordinary,” according to the festival.

In recent years, the global TV landscape has been shaken up by some of the most talented, British female auteurs to have braced this planet.