Nigel Williams' adaptation of William Golding's
Lord of the Flies premiered a
couple of summers ago at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to great acclaim, but
for various reasons I'm not crazy about seeing stuff there so I stayed away. Timothy
Sheader's production has now been restaged (by Liam Steel) for a national tour
though; it's about halfway through its run now, and I caught it on its Richmond leg.
The World War II setting of the novel has been updated to the present day but
Williams' adaptation imagines a new evacuation of children, with a number of boys,
few of whom knew each other beforehand, being flown away from a war. But their plane
crashes on a deserted island killing all the adult chaperones, and the surviving
boys try to organise themselves, quickly electing the no-nonsense Ralph (Luke
Ward-Wilkinson) as leader, with a plan to maintain a fire and attract rescuers. But
Jack (Freddie Watkins,) leader of a public school choir, believes he should be
chief, and quickly undermines Ralph's lead.
