James Graham

James Graham is a playwright and screenwriter.

His Olivier Award-winning play Dear England, about Gareth Southgate’s transformation of the national football team, had a sold out run at the National in 2023, transferred to the West End and was broadcast on NT Live. An updated version returns to the National Theatre before a national UK tour this spring, and it is being adapted for TV with the BBC.

Other work includes Tammy Faye, having originally opened at the Almeida Theatre in 2022, it opened on Broadway in 2024, and Boys from the Blackstuff, adapted from Alan Bleasdale’s seminal TV drama, originally performed at Liverpool Royal Court in 2023 and opened at The National Theatre last summer.

James‘s breakout play This House – also at the National Theatre – went on to have an Olivier-nominated sell-out revival in the West End in 2017 and it was chosen by popular vote as the best play of the 2010’s for the major theatre publisher Methuen.

James’s TV drama “Sherwood” – set in the Red Wall community of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, where he is from – won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Drama and won two BAFTAS. Its critically acclaimed second season aired in 2024. O

ther TV shows include “Quiz” (ITV and AMC) in 2020, directed by Stephen Frears, which was one of the most watched UK television dramas of the year, and “Brexit: An Uncivil War,” broadcast on Channel 4 and HBO, which was nominated for an Emmy and a BAFTA.