Peter Straughan

Peter Straughan (born 1968) is a British playwright, screenwriter and author, based in the north-east of England. He was writer-in-residence at Newcastle's Live Theatre Company. Whilst there, Live staged his plays, Bones and Noir. Both of these plays have displayed Straughan's talent for writing dark, twisted and witty stories.

His first ambition was to be a professional musician and he achieved this while playing bass guitar with Newcastle-based band "The Honest Johns". He spent four years touring and recording with the band through the late 1980s and into the early 1990s before leaving to take up full-time education at Newcastle University. While Peter was a student he was also a member of the band Cactusman. Peter wrote the song "Killer", which appeared on the CD album North of London, a collection of music by North East bands released through Newcastle Arts.^[1]

Straughan co-wrote the 2006 feature film, Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution and adapted Toby Young's memoir How to Lose Friends & Alienate People. He is the writer of the 2009 film, The Men Who Stare at Goats, and co-writer of the 2011 film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay, a screenplay he wrote in collaboration with his late wife Bridget O'Connor. O'Connor died of cancer, aged 49, in 2010, before the film was released. They were awarded a BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay.^[2]

He adapted Wolf Hall for television.^[3][4] Series 2 of Wolf Hall was confirmed to be in production on 27 May 2019.^[5]

Short film

Film writer

• Sixty Six (2006)
• Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution (2007)
• How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008)
• The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)
• The Debt (2010)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
• Frank (2014)
• Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)
• The Snowman (2017)
• The Goldfinch (2019)
• Conclave (2024)
• Crime 101 (2025)

Television

• Peter Straughan at British Council: Literature
• Peter Straughan at IMDb