ITV commissions high-octane thriller, Red Eye, to premiere on ITVX

Starring Jing Lusi and Richard Armitage with Lesley Sharp, written by Peter A. Dowling and Jingan Young, directed by Kieron Hawkes and produced by multi award-winning, Bad Wolf

Red Eye, told over an adrenaline-filled six parts, is set between an all-night plane flight from London to Beijing and the corridors of power within Whitehall.
 
Starring Jing Lusi and Richard Armitage with Lesley Sharp, the show has been commissioned by ITV’s Head of Drama Polly Hill and is British screenwriter Peter A. Dowling’s (Black and Blue, Flightplan) television debut, which will exclusively air on ITVX in 2024. 

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Born and raised in Hong Kong, Dr Jingan Young (Yang Jing’an 楊靜安) is a London based screenwriter, freelance journalist, former fringe theatre producer and British Cinema critic and scholar. Once upon a time she was signed to a Hong Kong record company. She has also worked in and around Soho restaurants for almost a decade.

She holds a BA (Hons) in English with Film Studies from King’s College London, a Master of Studies in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford (2014) and a Doctor Of Philosophy in Film Studies from King’s College London (2020). Her first monograph  ‘Soho on Screen’  was published by Berghahn Books in May 2022. She has held lecturing posts at Brunel University, Birkbeck University, and is currently an assessor with King’s College London.

She is currently guest writing on the global thriller RED EYE for ITVx and Bad Wolf starring Richard Armitage which will air in 2024. Her first episode for children’s series Biff and Chip airs on CBBC and BBC iPlayer in November '23. In 2023, she was invited to join BAFTA as a Connect Member.

She spearheaded the first British East Asian play collection published in the UK, Foreign Goods published by Bloomsbury Books in 2018, which features new writing from showcases she produced for ten years with her company POKFULAM RD PRODUCTIONS. The next volume is currently in development.

She is a regular contributor to the Guardian and Sight and Sound and she previously wrote a column for the SCMP newspaper .

She lives in London with her husband and son.

Jingan writes for stage, screen and radio. She is currently writing on the ITV thriller RED EYE (Bad Wolf/ITVx) starring Richard Armitage which airs in 2024. She is also a story consultant for the show. Upcoming TV episodes include ‘Magic Dragon’ for Series 3 of BIFF & CHIP for the BBC (TX: Nov 15 2023). In 2023 she was invited to join BAFTA as a Connect member.

Her feature film, a British East Asian romantic comedy NUMBER TWO DAUGHTER is currently in development with Greenacre Films (as winner of the Triforce Events Script Search Competition 2021).  She was also named as ‘one to watch’ by the BBC and Idris Elba on the BBC Talent Hotlist 2017 and was a fellow on the BEATS/BFI scheme. She was shortlisted for the Felix Dexter Bursary in 2018 and Blacklight TV's C4 On The Edge series.

Jingan was the first playwright commissioned in the English language for FILTH (Failed in London, Try Hong Kong) which premiered at the 42nd HK Arts Festival in 2014. From 2014-2018 she produced the sellout  FOREIGN GOODS  showcases at Theatre 503, the Park and the Arcola Theatre, culminating in the seminal publication of the same name by Bloomsbury Books. LIFE AND DEATH OF A JOURNALIST   ran to critical acclaim at the VAULT Festival 2020. The Guardian called it ‘intensely smart…prickling with intelligence and anger.’ In 2023, her play HONG KONG TRAGEDY was shortlisted for the Jermyn Street Theatre Woven Voices Prize. She was chosen for the inaugural Sky Comedy and Birmingham Rep scheme for upcoming comedy talent and was mentored by Meera Syal.

She has been in writersrooms with Bad Wolf, Channel 4 and CBBC. In 2021, she completed the prestigious Channel 4 Screenwriting Course (1/12 writers chosen from over 3000 scripts). Jingan has trained with BBC Writersroom on London Voices. She was a member of the prestigious Royal Court Young Writers Programme (2012), Hampstead Theatre’s Heat & Light (2012) and the Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab (2013). 

Her plays have been produced at the Arcola Theatre, Theatre 503, Pleasance Theatre, Old Vic, Vault Festival, Jacksons Lane, Old Red Lion, New Wimbledon Theatre and Camden People’s Theatre.

Her Exceptional Talent Visa was sponsored by Michael Grandage, Oberon Books and the Papatango Theatre Company.

She is represented by Nick Fenwick at Curtis Brown.

Dr Jingan Young was most recently the convenor of the Introduction to Screenwriting module in the School of Arts at Birkbeck University, where she also lectured on other modules from September 2022 – July 2023. She was also an associate lecturer in spring of 2022. She is currently an MA supervisor for the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. 

Her first monograph SOHO ON SCREEN was published by Berghahn Books with a foreword by Peter Bradshaw in May 2022. She had appeared on a special SOHO themed episode of BBC 3 Free Thinking with Dr Matthew Sweet (May 12, 2021) and gave an invited lecture at the London’s BFI Southbank in June 2023 for NEW WRITINGS. Her second monograph is currently under peer review.

She was previously a lecturer at Brunel University (Film Studies) and King’s College London (Digital Humanities). She has also held posts in the Department of Film Studies and CMCI. This includes a role in King’s Academy, assessing the King’s Global Talent Awards.

She has presented at high-profile, international conferences and is published by numerous journals. Wider engagement includes the Soho on Screen , Soho Bites & Cities in Cinema podcast(s) (now produced by Dom Delargy). In 2020 she created the Cities in Cinema network and in fall 2023 she will launch a new podcast, ‘Days of Being Wild’, a podcast about Hong Kong politics, art and filmmaking.

She is a contributor to the Guardian , Sight and Sound, Nylon Magazine, South China Morning Post Newspaper, London Review of Books, and of course – the Soho Clarion. She has also been an editorial intern at British   Vogue and Guardian Books department.

For academic enquiries, please email jingan.young@kcl.ac.uk .

Jingan has appeared on BBC World News, BBC Radio 4 Today, ABC Radio, London Live,  BBC Radio 4 Front Row and BBC 3 Free Thinking with Matthew Sweet. She created the original Soho Bites podcast and the new season is now hosted and produced by Dom Delargy. Original and new episodes can be found on all podcast platforms. 

Jingan’s new guest-led podcast  The Days of Being Wild Podcast  阿飛正傳, on Hong Kong, launches in Autumn of 2023.

She is available for presenting and research requests.