‘Rachel had been ready to leave me if our IVF hadn’t worked’: writer Jack Thorne on how his family’s fertility struggles inspired his new film

The screenwriter behind hit TV dramas National Treasure and Kiri, as well as the Harry Potter stage play, talks about his new, more personal project created with his wife - a feature film, Joy, celebrating the birth of IVF

In 1968, three people decided to cure infertility. In the 10 years between 1968 and 1978, Robert (Bob) Edwards, a scientist, Patrick Steptoe, an obstetrician, Jean Purdy, an embryologist, worked together, with many others, to do something incredible. Basing themselves in an outbuilding at Oldham general on scraps of money, with nurses volunteering their time, and patients their patience, they worked incessantly on the issue of infertility.

Bob had had a number of breakthroughs working with mice and rabbits, and thought that with Patrick’s innovations with laparoscopes (keyhole surgery), there was a possibility that tubal infertility could be, at least partially, cured.

‘Rachel had been ready to leave me if our IVF hadn’t worked’: writer Jack Thorne on how his family’s fertility struggles inspired his new film

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