One of the world’s most popular books “Lord of the Flies” is headed to the screen with a television adaptation coming from Stan and the BBC.
The adaptation has been written by Jack Thorne (“Adolescence”, “The Hack”), directed by Marc Munden (“Help”, The Sympathizer”), produced by Eleven (“Ten Pound Poms”, “Sex Education”), and will be distributed internationally by Sony Pictures Television.
New images show the young cast, many of them making their professional acting debuts, filming on location in Malaysia. The castaways are played by Winston Sawyers as Ralph, Lox Pratt as Jack, David McKenna as Piggy and Ike Talbut as Simon. Thomas Connor appears as Roger, Noah and Cassius Flemming as twins Sam and Eric, Cornelius Brandreth as Maurice and Tom Page-Turner as Bill – alongside an ensemble of more than 30 boys playing the desert island camp’s “biguns” and “littluns”.
“Lord of the Flies” tells the story of a group of young schoolchildren who find themselves stranded on a tropical island with no adults, following a deadly plane crash. In an attempt to remain civil, the boys organise themselves, led by Ralph and supported by the group’s intellectual, Piggy.
But Jack, who is in charge of signal fire duty, is more interested in hunting and vying for leadership and soon begins to draw other boys away from the order of the group and, ultimately, from hope to tragedy.Thorne’s adaptation will be the first for television. Truthful to the original novel – set in the early 1950s on an unnamed Pacific island – Thorne’s adaptation delves further into the book’s emotive themes; human nature, the loss of innocence and boyhood masculinity.
Each of the four episodes is titled after a character at the core of the story – Ralph, Piggy, Simon, and Jack – offering a subtly different perspective on the boys’ collective plight and manner in which they cope with their predicament. The series has been made with the support of “Lord of the Flies” author William Golding’s family.