Preview; Stacy, Arcola Theatre, London

Caught in the trap of sexual freedom

Charlotte Cripps
Monday 05 February 2007 20:00 EST
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Jack Thorne has written episodes for Channel 4's latest series of Shameless and E4's new comedy drama Skins, about a group of teenagers getting into and out of trouble in Bristol. The 28-year-old has also been commissioned to write a play for the National Theatre Studio, about a child who goes missing on a school trip, and another for the Bush Theatre, about a paranoid schizophrenic.

In his new one-man play, Stacy, directed by Hamish Pirie, a character called Rob has to deal with his feelings after sleeping with his best friend, and then her flatmate. A slide show with 200 still images of 21 faces flicks behind him like a photo album as the story moves forward over two days in his life.

"I love using my imagination and I like trying to deal with my own problems in scripts," says Thorne. "I'm a real television and theatre nerd, because I watch everything. It helps me reflect on my own life. To be able to offer identification to an audience using my own life is very fulfilling."

His past work includes When You Cure Me, about a man who thinks that he can "fix" his traumatised and bedridden girlfriend, a rape victim, which played at the Bush Theatre in 2005. Fanny and Faggot, about the child murderer Mary Bell, debuted on the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004 and is now playing at Finborough Theatre in a revised form. Paperhouse, which was also directed by Hamish Pirie, is about a man who buys his murdered neighbour's house and turns it into a social club.

"Writing for theatre is much more about the first draft, whereas writing for television is all in the rewriting," Thorne says. "I spent six months writing just one episode of Shameless because it involved writing 10 drafts. Writing for theatre is far more isolating. I like the group dynamic of television writing, especially for Skins, where we bounce ideas off other writers in a weekly meeting."

To 24 February (020-7503 1646; www.arcolatheatre.com)

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