Lord of the Flies
Leeds Playhouse

LORD of the Flies remains a staple text in schools, with its themes of human nature and group mentality remaining ever relevant. In adapting William Golding’s novel, it’s therefore only necessary for director Amy Leach to make minor updates to this co-production between Leeds Playhouse and Belgrade Theatre Coventry. 

Where the original features a group of public schoolboy castaways, here there’s a diversity of young actors. This makes characters more relatable to a modern audience, but it also reflects current political faultlines. Choirboy prefect Jack (Patrick Dineen) tries to use his privilege to exert control over the group, his disdain for the now female Ralph (Sade Malone) bristling with chauvinism and class arrogance.

Environmental catastrophe and nuclear fears are also reflected, with the children wondering if they could be the only people left alive when they crash land. Their tropical paradise is cloaked in the concerns they carry from home, having been evacuated from an unspecified warzone. It’s an underlying fear that’s captured in Max Johns’ monochrome set, with its black palm trees jutting out of white rock.