Jack Thorne on ‘Adolescence,’ ‘Lord of the Flies,’ and his autism
The Business
KCRW
4.5 • 699 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Kim Masters talks to Jack Thorne, who won all the prizes for writing the Netflix series Adolescence, about his new series, an adaptation of the novel Lord of the Flies. They also discuss how Adolescence revealed Netflix’s stunning global reach, and why series star Stephen Graham has a co-writing credit, even though Graham doesn’t actually write. Thorne also tells Kim about being diagnosed as autistic in his mid-40s.
Plus, Kim and Matt Belloni discuss the major shakeup at CBS’ 60 Minutes. Bari Weiss, the controversial head of the network’s news division, fired two correspondents and other staff, and hired someone with no broadcast news experience to run the vaunted show.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business. |
| 0:06.8 | Jack Thorne, who won all the prizes for writing the Netflix series Adolescence, |
| 0:11.6 | was diagnosed with autism at the age of 44. |
| 0:15.2 | It happened when a listener who heard him on the radio reached out to ask if he'd ever considered |
| 0:19.5 | that he might be on the spectrum. Then I went downstairs and asked my wife and she went, yeah. And then I went |
| 0:25.9 | through the medical process and I can't tell you how many people went. I could have saved you |
| 0:30.2 | some money. It was pretty clear what you were. And it was pretty clear to everyone except me. |
| 0:36.0 | Thorne visited our KCRW studios to discuss |
| 0:39.0 | an extraordinary career that includes writing the new Netflix series, Lord of the Flies, and all four |
| 0:44.6 | Beatles movies set for release in 2028, though sorry he couldn't talk about that. He also marvels at how |
| 0:51.5 | adolescents revealed Netflix's stunning global reach and why series |
| 0:55.5 | star Stephen Graham has a co-writing credit even though Graham doesn't actually write. |
| 1:01.1 | But first we banter. |
| 1:02.3 | Stick around. |
| 1:03.3 | It's the business from KCRW. |
| 1:07.9 | I am joined by my partner in banter Matt Bellany. |
| 1:10.7 | Hello, Matt. Hi there. So, I suppose it's not surprising that the head of CBS News, Barry Weiss, fired Sharon Alfonci, who had been a 10-year correspondent at 60 minutes. Yet, I still find something shocking about it, which is compounded by the hiring of Nick Bilton, |
| 1:30.9 | a Vanity Fair feature writer and, I guess, aspiring screenwriter with no TV experience, |
| 1:37.7 | not unlike Barry herself, to run a show that has been the number one news show for 50 years. I mean, this is fixing what |
| 1:47.3 | wasn't really broken. I mean, I'm not saying there couldn't have been maybe some update, |
| 1:51.2 | improvement, something, but this is not the problem. And yet, Barry goes right at it. And I know |
| 1:57.1 | this is what she likes to do. She likes to sort of put that middle finger out to people who she considers woke. |
... |
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