His biggest solo project to date came about when Channel 4 asked him to write a trilogy of shows about modern Britain. “National Treasure” (2016) was inspired by Operation Yewtree, a police investigation into sexual misconduct by media personalities; the smash hit “Kiri” (2018) explored transracial adoption. Caroline Hollick, the channel’s head of drama, praises the balance in Mr Thorne’s writing between brutal honesty and warmth, even humour: “That’s why he can dig into these huge state-of-the-nation ideas and make them so appealing to watch.” The trilogy’s final instalment will be a mini-series about corporate manslaughter, which will draw on real-life incidents including the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017.

迄今为止，他最大的个人项目是英国第四台邀请他创作一部关于现代英国的电视剧三部曲。《国家淫才》（2016）的灵感来自于“杉树行动”，“杉树行动”指代警方对传媒人士不当性行为的调查；第二部又名为《姬芮》（2018），一度热播，讲述不同种族间收养的故事。该频道戏剧主管卡罗琳•霍利克称赞索恩在写作中保持了残酷的诚实与热情、甚至幽默之间的平衡:“这就是为什么他能深入挖掘这些宏大的国家理念，使其如此有吸引力。” 三部曲的最后一部将是一部关于公司过失杀人的迷你剧，取材于真实事件，其中包括2017年格伦费尔大厦大火事件。
Mr Thorne, who is 40, tends to anchor his stories in families (sometimes unconventional ones), scrutinising the relationships between siblings or between parents and their children. These families have a veneer of unity but, underneath, they tend to be fractured by lies and betrayals. Much is left unsaid. In “National Treasure” Dee (Andrea Riseborough) wonders whether her drug-addiction and memory loss is linked to the predatory behaviour of which her father is accused. In “The Virtues”, to mask his slide back into the bottle, Joseph (Stephen Graham, pictured left) spins a story about a workplace accident to his son. Mr Graham, who also starred in “This is England”, reckons that “no one catches truth and reality the way Jack does”. Mr Thorne’s shows do “more than make you look at pretty pictures,” Mr Graham says; they come “into your living room and make you think”.
索恩今年40岁，他的故事多以“家庭”为题材 (有时是非传统的)，审视兄弟姐妹之间或父母与孩子之间的关系。这些家庭表面上团结一致，但实际上往往被谎言和背叛弄得支离破碎。还有很多话没说。在《国家淫才》中，迪伊(安德里亚·瑞斯伯勒饰)怀疑她的毒瘾和失忆与她父亲被指控的掠夺性行为有关。在《德性》中，为了掩饰自己又回到瓶子里，约瑟夫(斯蒂芬·格雷厄姆饰，图左)给儿子讲了一个关于工作场所事故的故事。同样在《英格兰》中担任主角的格雷厄姆认为，没有人能像杰克那样捕捉真相和现实。格雷厄姆表示，索恩的作品“不仅仅是让你看漂亮的画面”；它们“走进你的客厅，让你思考”。
Other threads knit the writer’s disparate subjects into a coherent oeuvre. Many of his stories feature loss or violence, exploring how such experiences calcify into trauma; several of his characters are dependent on booze or sex. He is an acute observer of nuances of affluence and class, that eternal British theme. Typically, Mr Thorne avoids the temptation to provide easy moralising and neat conclusions, considering those unrealistic and therefore dishonest. He says he wants his work to lead “to people asking questions rather than giving them answers”.
其他线索将作者不同的主题编织成连贯的作品。他的许多故事都以失去或暴力为特色，探索这些经历是如何变成创伤的；他的几个角色都依赖于酒精或性。他敏锐地观察到了富裕和阶级之间的细微差别，这是英国永恒的主题。通常情况下，考虑到那些不现实、因而不诚实的结论，索恩避免了提供简单的道德说教和简洁结论的诱惑。他表示希望自己的工作能让人们提出问题，而不是给出答案。
That interrogatory bent is, he thinks, why he enjoys another, contrasting genre, which he has honed alongside the social realism: fantasy. That is also a means to ask “fascinating questions about the world”, he says. “The Fades”, a supernatural drama broadcast in 2011, which followed two nerdy teenagers battling the evil spirits of the dead, was really about pacifism, Mr Thorne suggests. A few years ago he adapted Dickens’s moralistic ghost story “A Christmas Carol” for the stage.

他认为，这种质疑的倾向是他喜欢另一种与社会现实主义形成鲜明对比的流派的原因，这种流派是他与社会现实主义一起磨练出来的：幻想。他说，这也是提出“关于世界的迷人问题”的一种方式。索恩认为，2011年播出的超自然剧《灵界》实际上是关于和平主义的。该剧讲述了两个书呆子少年与亡灵搏斗的故事。数年前，他把狄更斯的道德鬼故事《圣诞颂歌》搬上了舞台。
He also wrote the script for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, based on an original tale by J.K. Rowling. The play won more Olivier awards (Britain’s most prestigious theatrical gongs) than any previous West End production. He wanted it to capture the predicament of outsiders; it follows Albus Severus Potter, Harry’s son, as he is bullied at Hogwarts and struggles to live up to his father’s legacy. And he has adapted Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” for a forthcoming serialisation. Lyra, the protagonist, struggles to assert her free will in the face of unpleasant parents, while trying to set the world to rights.
他还为《哈利波特与被诅咒的孩子》写了剧本，改编自J.K.罗琳的原著。该剧获得的奥利维尔奖(英国最负盛名的戏剧奖项)比伦敦西区以往任何一部作品都要多。他希望它能捕捉到局外人的困境；故事围绕着哈利的儿子阿不思·西弗勒斯·波特展开，他在霍格沃茨饱受欺凌，努力不辜负父亲的遗愿。他还改编了菲利普·普尔曼的《黑暗物质》，将于近期连载。主人公莱拉在面对令人不快的父母时，努力维护自己的自由意志，同时努力让世界恢复正常。
Harry Potter and the state of the nation Perhaps inevitably, details from Mr Thorne’s own life have found their way into his locations, scenes and characters. For “the end of history...”, his most personal piece of writing to date, he mined his childhood in a politically active household where—like some of his creations—he felt he was constantly falling short of his parents’ ideals and expectations. His father, a union representative, took him and his siblings to rallies and protests from an early age; Mr Thorne has been a member of the Labour Party since he was 16.
《哈利·波特与国家的现状》也许不可避免地会从索恩先生自己生活的细节中找到他的拍摄地点、场景和人物。代表“历史的终结……，这是他迄今为止最具个人色彩的一篇文章。他在一个政治活跃的家庭中挖掘了自己的童年，在那里，像他的一些创作一样，他觉得自己总是达不到父母的理想和期望。他的父亲是一名工会代表，从小就带着他和兄弟姐妹参加集会和抗议；索恩先生从16岁起就是工党成员。
“My politics are very important to me,” he acknowledges. He resists the seepage of those views into his work, but all the same they “infect the stories I tell”. He dislikes speechifying, but says that, as he writes, he constantly questions “what right we have to try and change the world and how we can, if indeed we can”. A motto is tattooed on the inside of his wrist: “Be good”.
“我的政治观点对我来说非常重要，”他承认。他拒绝将这些观点渗透到他的作品中，但作品同样“感染了我讲述的故事”。他不喜欢高谈阔论，但他说，正如他所写的，他经常质疑“我们有什么权利去尝试改变世界，如果我们真的能做到，我们又该如何去做”。他手腕内侧纹着一句格言:“做个好人”。

来源：经济学人