Jessica Swale

Jessica Swale is an Olivier Award-winning filmmaker, writer and director. As a playwright, her first play Blue Stockings, won her an Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright nomination and is now on the GCSE drama syllabus. Her second, Nell Gwynn, won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy after transferring from the Globe to the West End, starring Gemma Arterton. She is currently penning the screenplay for Working Title. Her much-performed theatre adaptations include Sense and Sensibility, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Jungle Book and The Secret Garden.

In film, her romantic comedy Merv, starring Zooey Deschanel and Charlie Cox, will be released later this year with MGM/ Lightworks and Amazon. Prior to that, her first short, the comedy Leading Lady Parts (starring Felicity Jones, Florence Pugh, Emilia Clarke, Tom Hiddleston and Gemma Chan) became a viral hit with over 25 million views and her debut feature film, Summerland (starring Gemma Arterton and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) was released in 2020 by Lionsgate, Embankment & BFI. She also wrote the screenplay for the Horrible Histories Movie starring Emilia Jones.

She has since directed episodes of Ten Percent for BRON/Headline starring Dominic West, Himesh Patel and Emma Corrin. Her latest projects include a new adaptation for Netflix and Lookout Point and a re-working of The Taming of the Shrew for Working Title.