Biography
John Donnelly is a British playwright and screenwriter. His stage work includes The Pass and Bone (both Royal Court Theatre), The Knowledge (Bush Theatre) and an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull for Headlong Theatre. His plays are published by Faber and Samuel French.
For television he wrote two episodes of the second series of Utopia (Channel 4, 2014) and an episode of Glue (E4, 2014). He also wrote the short film Henry for Channel 4’s Coming Up strand (2013). Donnelly adapted The Pass for the screen (2016) and wrote the screenplay for The Assessment (2025). He won the Tom Erhardt Award and his play The Knowledge was named Time Out London’s best play of 2011. From 2007 to 2013 he ran the theatre strand of the MA in writing for stage and broadcast media at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
