Janice Okoh

Janice Okoh is a British playwright and screenwriter.^[1][2]

Janice Okoh
Occupation	Playwright, screenwriter
Alma mater	Keele University University of East Anglia
Notable works	Three Birds
Notable awards	Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting

Early life

Okoh is from Lewisham, South-East London, the daughter of Nigerian parents Gladys and Hezekiah Okoh from Delta State. Okoh attended a local primary school and then boarded at St Michael's School for Girls in Limpsfield near Oxted.^[3] She studied Law at Keele University.^[4] Before becoming a playwright, she worked at law firms in the City for seven years and as a teacher. Okoh pursued a Master of Arts (MA) in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA).^[5]

Career

Her first play Egusi Soup was produced in 2012 by Menagerie Theatre/Soho Theatre. In 2011 Okoh won the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting for her play Three Birds (which would be produced in 2013), which she entered under a pseudonym Ebenezer Foot.^[3] The play was also short-listed for the Verity Bargate Award and the Alfred Fagon Award. She adapted the play for the television series Just Act Normal, broadcast on BBC Three from 16 April 2025.^[6]

Okoh's play The Gift (2020) tells the story of the Egbado princess Sarah Bonetta who was given to Queen Victoria as a gift, and raised as her god-daughter. The play opened at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in January 2020 before moving on to the Theatre Royal Stratford East.^[7] It was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.^[8][9] She has also written for radio, including an adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses.

Okoh has also written for television, contributing episodes of Doctors, Hetty Feather and On the Edge . She joined the writing team for series 2 of ITV's Sanditon.^[10]

Works

Stage plays

• Top Brass. Theatre 503, 2010.
• Egusi Soup. Nick Hern, 2012.
• Three Birds, 2013.
• The Gift, 2020.

Radio plays

• Carnival. Aired on BBC Radio R, 2010.
• Reunion. Aired on BBC Radio 4 Extra, 2011.
• Noughts & Cross. Aired on BBC Radio 4, 2014.
• Silk: The Clerks Room. Aired on BBC Radio 4, 2014.
• The Awakening. Aired on BBC Radio 4, 2014.
• The Heart of a Woman. Aired on BBC Radio 4, 2015.
• Red Earth, Red Sky. Aired on BBC Radio 4. 2019.
• Half of a Yellow Sun. Aired on BBC Radio 4, 2020.
• Cane. Aired on BBC Radio 4, 2020.