BBC Yorke's first job at the BBC was as a studio manager and then as a producer on
BBC Radio 5. In 1994 Yorke moved to television, working as a script editor on
EastEnders before becoming the storyline consultant on
Casualty. In 1999, after a brief period as producer on
Sunburn, he took on the executive producer role on
EastEnders. Yorke undertook a “radical shake-up” of the programme, introducing the
Slater family and the
Trueman family, and axing most of the Di Marco Family Yorke also oversaw some storylines which attracted national controversy. The 2002 episode in which
Trevor Morgan attacked
Little Mo over Christmas dinner drew so many complaints that the Broadcasting Standards Commission undertook their first study of sex and violence in soap operas in twenty years, and led to considerable negative media coverage. Yorke defended the inclusion of adult and distressing themes, pointing to the fact that police forces had requested copies of the episode to use in training and to the number of real victims who felt encouraged to call the BBC hotline that was promoted during the broadcast. During the period that Yorke was executive producer
EastEnders received commendations from
The Meningitis Trust, Mental Health in the Media, the
NSPCC, the Police, the
National Schizophrenia Fellowship and the
Terence Higgins Trust for the show's coverage of social issues. This approach had some success, with commissions including
Shameless,
Omagh, and the two-parter
Sex Traffic, which Yorke later described as one of the productions he is most proud of. One reason for approaching Yorke in particular was a decline in the popularity of
EastEnders, with critics disparaging recent seasons and the show hitting a record low of 6,000,000 in viewers. Yorke returned to the BBC and commissioned several
notable shows, whilst also acting as executive producer of the Internet spin-off
EastEnders: E20 and BBC daytime drama,
Land Girls. That same year Yorke founded the
BBC Writers Academy, a paid year-long training scheme for aspiring television writers. It was unusual in that successful applicants were given the chance to develop scripts for prominent BBC productions, with the finished work ultimately being produced as part of regular programming. One of Yorke's last significant BBC roles was as acting editor of radio soap
The Archers in early 2012, while the programme's editor
Vanessa Whitburn took long service leave. Yorke left the BBC again later that year, although he returned briefly in 2017 when the then-executive producer of
EastEnders Sean O'Connor stepped down. Although he was contracted for three months, Yorke ended up remaining as executive consultant for slightly over a year, during which time
EastEnders won a
BAFTA for Continuing Drama.
Post-BBC In 2012 Yorke became managing director at
Company Pictures, taking over from founders
Charles Pattinson and
George Faber, both of whom who he had previously worked with on
Shameless for Channel 4. During this period he was credited as an executive producer and occasionally a writer on a range of dramas including
Skins Redux (2013),
The Missing (2014),
Red Rock (2015-16) and
The Moonstone (2016). In 2015 Company Pictures began production on an ambitious
six-part adaptation of Hilary Mantel's
Wolf Hall trilogy with Yorke again acting as executive producer. The resulting series was critically acclaimed, winning three
Baftas, a
Peabody award, and the
Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film. In 2021, Yorke served as executive producer for the Channel 4 documentary
Death on the Common, which explored the cicumstances and aftermath of
the murder of Rachel Nickell from her son's perspective. The same events were used as the basis for the upcoming
Netflix true crime drama series
The Witness (2026), which Yorke also executively produced. While working at Company Pictures Yorke completed his first book,
Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them, which was published by
Penguin in 2013. The book develops the traditional
aristotelian concept of the
three-act story structure and compares it with later evolutions such as the five-act structure (sometimes attributed to
Shakespeare but more rigorously delineated by the
German novellist
Gustav Freytag), arguing that “[e]very form of artistic composition, like any language, has a grammar” . Although Yorke argues that the five-act structure is the best interprative model for understanding how stories work, he stresses that
Into the Woods “isn't a book advocating its conscious use. Its aim is to explore and examine narrative shape, ask how and why it exists, and why a child can write it effortlessly”. Given Yorke's experience in training and mentoring junior writers many reviewers were surprised that
Into the Woods, as one reviewer put it, “is not a how-to book for screenwriters but a philosophical inquiry, with a particular emphasis on structure”. Rather than identifying an underlying pattern and telling would-be writers how to follow it, Yorke wrote that he wanted to explore why stories ended up repeating similar patterns across different times and cultures, building an argument for what author and journalist
Will Storr has termed Yorke's “hidden symmetry”, a process “in which protagonists and antagonists function as opposites with their rising and falling fortunes mirroring one another.” Yorke has continued to move into more roles involving teaching and speaking. In 2014 he presented his work on fundamental story structures as part of the Talks at Google speaker series, and in 2019 the BBC relaunched the
BBC Writers Academy as part of
BBC Studios, and Yorke was appointed as Head of the programme. In 2016 Yorke founded John Yorke Story, an accredited online learning provider which runs training courses in writing for various genres and mediums, as well as other media production roles.
Radio Since 2023 Yorke has presented the weekly BBC Radio 4 series
Opening Lines, which explores the themes and cultural impact of the books and plays dramatised for Radio 4's weeend afternoon dramas. He has also worked as a narrative consultant for audio platforms including BBC Studios and
Wondery, and on popular productions including
Hannah Fry's
Unchartered and
Rosamund Pike's
Mother, Neighbor, Russian Spy. ==Notable commissions==