Jonathan Harvey wrote the screenplay for Beautiful Thing (1996), a moving British comedy-drama about two working-class adolescent boys trying to cope with their newly discovered love for each other. Prior to that, he had been a teacher in a London comprehensive school. It was there that he was commissioned by the director of the Royal Court Young People's Theatre, Elyse Dodgson, to write a play. The result, Wildfire, played eight weeks at the National Theatre Studio and launched a successful second career as a playwright for Harvey.