Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne joins sci-fi TV drama

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Jack ThorneImage source, Reuters
Image caption,
Thorne's other credits include the This is England series and The Fades

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne is joining new TV drama Electric Dreams: The World of Philip K Dick.

The 10-part Channel 4 and Sony Pictures Television series, based on Dick's short stories, will star Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston.

Other writers on the project include Matthew Graham (Doctor Who) and 50 Shades screenwriter Kelly Marcel.

Filming is expected to begin early next year.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas writer Tony Grisoni is also one of the scriptwriters on board.

The new writers were revealed at a dinner ahead of the Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Image source, PA
Image caption,
The show has become the hottest ticket in London

Each episode of Electric Dreams will be a standalone piece, adapted by a team of authors which also includes Masters of Sex's Michael Dinner and Outlander's Ronald D Moore.

Dick, who died in 1982 at the age of 53, had 44 novels published. His first was Solar Lottery in 1955.

He is best known for works including The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - the basis of 1982 film Blade Runner.

Other films based on Dick's books include Total Recall and Minority Report. He also wrote more than 100 short stories.

'Sold-out show'

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the West End stage play written by Thorne, is set 19 years after the seventh and final book in the series by JK Rowling.

Presented in two parts and running to more than five hours, it shows the main characters from the books as adults in their mid-30s as their own children head off to Hogwarts.

Demand for tickets for the two-part show has been huge. The show is sold out, although there is an online lottery every Friday in which 40 tickets are released for every performance the following week.

Thorne's other TV credits include two Bafta-winning series, This is England and The Fades.

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