About
FILM MAKER - WRITER - DIRECTOR
Photograph by Michael Wharley
Jessica is an Olivier award-winning film maker, writer and director. She trained at Central School of Speech and Drama, and Exeter University.
As a playwright, her first play Blue Stockings (Shakespeare’s Globe) won her an Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright nomination and is now on the GCSE drama syllabus.
Her second, Nell Gwynn, transferred from the Globe to the West End starring Gemma Arterton, and won the Olivier for Best New Comedy. She is currently writing the screenplay for Working Title. In 2012, she won a BAFTA JJ Screenwriting Bursary.
In the autumn of 2025 Paddington The Musical will open in London’s West End, with Jessica writing the book that the show is based upon.
In film, her romantic comedy Merv, starring Zooey Deschanel and Charlie Cox, will be released towards the end of 2025 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: The Movie starring Emilia Jones.
Since then she has shot two episodes of Ten Percent for Amazon/Bron, featuring guest stars Dominic West, Emma Corin, and Himesh Patel.
As a writer, latest projects include Swan Lake for Universal Pictures to star Felicity Jones, Persuasion for Fox Searchlight, Longbourn for Studio Canal and the creation of a TV series, based on A Knight’s Tale for Left Bank / Sony.
In theatre, Jessica founded Red Handed Theatre Company in 2005, and, as Artistic Director, won the Peter Brook Empty Space Award for The Belle’s Stratagem, alongside an Evening Standard Best Director nomination. As director, work includes Fallen Angels (Salisbury Playhouse), Bedlam (Shakespeare's Globe), Winter (Theatre Newfoundland, Canada) and Sleuth, Sense and Sensibility and Far from the Madding Crowd (Watermill Theatre) and numerous productions at the Arcola, the Park and Southwark Playhouse.
Jessica has also written many much performed adaptations of classic novels for the stage, including The Secret Garden, Far from the Madding Crowd, Sense and Sensibility, The Jungle Book and Stig of the Dump.
Jessica is an Associate Artist with International NGO Youth Bridge Global, who use theatre as a development tool in war torn countries. As such she’s directed community productions of Comedy of Errors, The Tempest and Much Ado about Nothing in the Balkans and the Marshall Islands (North Pacific).
She is the author of a best-selling series of drama games books, published by Nick Hern. And her new book A Year of Creative Thinking, 366 Daily Inspirations for Writers 7 Artists, is to be published in September 2025.
Jessica is involved in Times Up UK and the 50:50 campaign, actively campaigning for greater equality across theatre and film.
Paddington The Musical comes to London’s West End in the autumn 2025. The music and lyrcs are based on the book written by Jessica.
Rom Com Merv, directed by Jessica, and starring Zooey Deschanel and Charlie Cox, will be released by MGM/ Lightworks and Amazon later in 2025.
Photography by Michael Wharley
