Joe Penhall

Joe Penhall
Joe Penhall at the 2009 Venice Film Festival for the promotion of The Road
Born	1967 London
Occupation	Playwright, screenwriter
Nationality	British
Spouse	Emily McLaughlin

Joe Penhall (born 1967) is a British playwright and screenwriter from London, best known for his award-winning stage play Blue/Orange and the award-winning West End musical Sunny Afternoon.

Born in London, Penhall was raised in Australia.

Prior to becoming a playwright, Joe Penhall was a manager of a gourmet pizza restaurant, which, one night, was broken into by a youth gang. This incident proved to be the impetus for his first play "Wild Turkey," which was produced at the Old Red Lion Pub.

Penhall's first major play Some Voices premiered at the Royal Court Theatre's upstairs playing space in London in 1994. It was very well-received, winning the John Whiting Award, and has since been played off-Broadway twice. In 2000 Penhall adapted the play for a film with the same name directed by Simon Cellan Jones, starring Daniel Craig and Kelly Macdonald, which premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight.

Penhall returned to the Royal Court Theatre with his second full-length play Pale Horse, which also played in the Theatre Upstairs and featured Ray Winstone, who had starred in Some Voices. A dark play, Pale Horse tells the story of a bar keeper coming to terms with the sudden death of his wife.

Penhall adapted Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love in 2004 to film starring Rhys Ifans and Daniel Craig. That same year he also wrote the screenplay for BBC2's BAFTA nominated dramatisation of Jake Arnott's novel The Long Firm starring Mark Strong.