Jane Thornton
Jane is a co – director of the John Godber Company.
Jane’s stage writing credits include Say It With Flowers (Hull Truck Theatre), All the Fun of the Fight (Theatre Royal Wakefield), Sold (co-written with John Godber), I Want That Hair and Wuthering Heights (Hull Truck Theatre), Shakers and Shakers The Musical (co-written with John Godber), Amid the Standing Corn (Joint Stock), (Nominated for Susan Smith Blackburn Award) Back to the Walls (Red Ladder) and Lost (Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough). For television, she co-wrote Odd Squad (BBC), which won her two BAFTAS, Bloomin’ Marvellous, Shakers, (Nominated for Writers Guild Award) Chalk Face (BBC) and It’s Happy Hour Again (Channel 4). Jane has also written a number of plays for children including Mollie of the Midfield for York Theatre Royal and The Sculptor’s Surprise (Theatre Royal Wakefield and The Hepworth Gallery) and The Big Sleepover (Wakefield), both of which enjoyed successful tours in schools around Yorkshire. Writing for radio includes two series of Spread a Little Happiness (Watershed Productions/BBC, co-written with John Godber), Dreaming in English, Bully and The Gift. She has twice been a judge for the International Student Play Script Competition and writer in residence at BBC Radio Humberside and Hymers College Hull. She has recently been teaching play-writing classes at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough.
This year Jane will receive an Honorary Doctorate for from the University of Hull for services to theatre in the city.
As an actor, Jane appeared in the original theatre productions of Up ‘n’ Under, Happy Jack, September in the Rain and April in Paris for Hull Truck and for TV, Coronation Street, Heartbeat, Hollyoaks and the screen plays of Up ‘n’ Under, My Kingdom for a Horse, and Thunder Road. She often works in radio most recently appearing with her husband in both September in the Rain, Happy Jack and April in Paris and Shafted for Radio 4 Classic Theatre as well as playing Alice in the award- winning D for Dexter and Lilian in Blue Eyed Boy. She has also been a reader for two episodes of With Great Pleasure, for comedian Mark Thomas and writer Gervase Phinn and has written and presented her own radio documentary My Life On Paper for Radio 4. More recent acting work includes appearing alongside her husband as Dot in a national tour of Shafted! and in the leading of Joan in the film Last Laugh for Visualize films. Last year she plays Carol in the critically acclaimed sell-out run of Scary Bikers at Trafalgar Studios.
As a director Jane has worked for extensively for the John Godber Company and other theatres and companies including Big Telly Theatre Company in Northern Ireland, Hull Truck, Nottingham Playhouse, Derby Playhouse, The Old Red Lion, the Edinburgh Festival, Hull New Theatre, the Institute of the Arts Barcelona, East Riding Theatre and the Ambassadors Theatre in London.