Jack Thorne: Adolescence, Stephen Graham, and Anxiety

The Romesh Ranganathan Show

Ranga Bee & Platform Media

Comedy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 711 Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Writer of Adolescence, Skins and This Is England, Jack Thorne joins Romesh to talk about the global impact of Adolescence and working closely with Stephen Graham. Jack opens up about social anxiety, imposter syndrome and how appearing on Desert Island Discs led to his autism diagnosis. They also discuss incel culture, kindness online, shifting power in the TV industry, Jack’s love of E.T. and work life balance. A Ranga Bee Production in partnership with Listen. 00:00 Intro 00:55 The reaction to Adolescence 01:30 Jack’s relationship with Stephen Graham 02:55 Working with Brad Pitt 04:10 Talking about incel culture 08:25 Finding kindness online 09:40 Critics’ response to Adolescence 12:24 How invested audiences became 14:15 The real-world impact of the show 16:50 Parents’ reactions 18:19 Romesh’s mum’s question 20:40 Romesh’s gift and Jack’s love for E.T. 25:40 Jack’s obsession with the NFL 30:33 Romesh on work ethic 32:20 Work life balance 35:22 Imposter syndrome 42:05 How the TV landscape is changing 43:20 What Jack wants to do next 49:57 Desert Island Discs and autism diagnosis 54:36 Misquoted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Awesome, look at this.
0:01.0	Yeah.
0:02.0	Yeah.
0:03.0	So you built this for this show. Yeah. Does it feel like a lot? No, I love it. I love it. Is it too much? It's great. The Ricky Jervasing is to put all your awards behind you. So you haven't done that. Well, there's too many spaces. My name is Jack Thorne. an booking, and I am very pleased to be on the Romish Reganating Show.
0:30.4	It's the Romish Rangor, Nathan.
0:36.1	Oh, shut up, Romish.
0:38.6	Thanks for coming in, man.
0:40.0	Thank you for having me.
0:40.8	I appreciate it.
0:41.7	Do you do a lot of this?
0:42.7	No.
0:43.8	Okay, well, then we're really honoured then.
0:45.7	List of shows you've written is unbelievable.
0:47.4	This is England, Harry Potter, his dark material skins, and of course, adolescence.
0:51.4	What does it feel like to have written and created adolescence?
0:57.8	I mean, is it, how does it feel to be sat there?
1:01.2	You cannot have got even close to predicting what the response to that was going to be.
1:07.3	No, no.
1:08.0	What was it like to be inside all of them?
1:09.9	I mean, I can't even imagine.
1:11.7	When it was going on, when it all got mad and suddenly we were being invited to 10 Downing Street and stuff, it felt weird.
1:20.3	But because it was so, because it was every day and so much every day, it just became this sort of ride that you were on.
	...

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