Bafta-winning screenwriter Jack Thorne announces autism diagnosis

Screenwriter and playwright Jack Thorne said he began the “complicated process” of getting diagnosed with autism after he appeared on Desert Island Discs.

Thorne, the winner of five Bafta awards, said a BBC Radio 4 listener who had heard his castaway interview with Lauren Laverne reached out to ask whether he had considered that he might be on the spectrum.

On Wednesday, the 44-year-old acclaimed writer announced on Twitter that he had been diagnosed with autism just before Christmas.

He wrote: “A long journey but one I’m very very happy to have gone on. Makes sense of stuff before, hopefully will help with stuff to come. I don’t understand it all yet, but I’m getting there.

“Bizarrely it started with doing Desert Island Discs – a very kind listener reached out and asked whether I’d considered the idea I might be autistic. My lovely agent, who got the note, thought there might be truth to it. My wife did too. So I started digging in.

“It’s a complicated process, getting diagnosed, but I found lots of kindness along the way. I’m very very very pleased to have done it, and I’m very very very pleased to know this about myself.”

The Desert Island Discs interview saw Thorne talk about the inspiration behind his Channel 4 drama Help starring Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham, which explores a care home bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic.

He said he had been inspired after reading about Covid-19 devastating these centres in a local newspaper and had grown up around the care sector as his mother was also a care worker.

The writer, who was diagnosed with the chronic condition cholinergic urticaria at the age of 20, also actively speaks out about representation for the disabled community within the TV industry.

While delivering the MacTaggart lecture at the 2021 Edinburgh TV Festival, he urged the industry to do more for disabled people, saying it has “utterly and totally” failed them.

Thorne has previously written for TV series and films including His Dark Materials and Enola Holmes, as well as writing the script for Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, the Olivier and Tony award-winning play based on the wizarding books by JK Rowling.