‘One, two, three, four …’ the boys count repeatedly, tracking their taps and trying to keep the ball in the air as the audience shuffles in. It’s a utopian vision: an imagined ideal unbound by status, conflict or fear – a world of unity and innocence. Then, like a thunderbolt, comes the crash: light beams, bass reverberates and bodies splay in slow motion. Tightly choreographed and visually arresting, this opening sequence is the rupture – the crash-landing that braces us for impact.
This ever-relevant, oft-adapted exploration of human nature’s duality may need no introduction, but it is not the Lord of the Flies you studied at school. Under director Steven Mitchell Wright, Golding’s classic novel – adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams – is given little alteration but substantial theatrical reinvention. Fluent in bold visual language and heightened physicality, Wright injects spectacle into the marrow of Golding’s tale, transforming the island into a volatile landscape of bodies, masculinity and menace. Featuring an ensemble of 11, this addition to Theatre Works’ 2026 season boasts an impressive scale that, while occasionally overambitious, tackles the source material’s complexity with visceral theatrical flair.
A neutral, steeply raked stage makes an unassuming yet surprisingly effective island for the marooned schoolboys – portrayed by men and gender-diverse performers – to traverse as the story unfolds. Behind it, a skeletal structure of pipes, clamps and ladders provides an industrial framework for the boys’ descent into savagery – a striking juxtaposition that makes visible the constructed systems the work critiques. The simple set – later strewn with plastic wrap and soaked by a torrent of rain – becomes a playground, its steep incline inviting the boys to climb, scramble and tumble across it with juvenile force.
Leading the large cast is Angus Leighton as Ralph, the elected – and often reluctant – leader of the stranded boys. Trying to maintain order and secure their rescue, he embodies civilisation and society’s structures. With the red conch – here, a red football – in hand, Leighton’s Ralph transforms from youthful naivety and boyish charm to a desperate assertion of authority before our eyes, bolstered by Oliver Cowen’s whiny but well-meaning Piggy. Leading the revolt against Ralph is Sean Yuen Halley’s pompous, megalomaniacal Jack, the choir prefect with a heart of darkness whose elocution and theatrical panache render him a Shakespearean tyrant in the making.
The ensemble moves with striking precision and synchronicity, especially during an unexpected yet brilliantly executed dance sequence that transforms a ritualistic feast into an MDMA-fuelled drug trip, fittingly set to Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘Savage’. Jack Burmeister’s sound design and composition guide the production with a steady hand, its atmosphere driven by ominous drones and deep, almost violent bass. Ben Hughes’ lighting design, though often subtle, also has enormous impact, mapping the group mind’s descent into tribalism and ritualised violence.
An intriguing, if inconsistent, element of Wright’s production is the live footage projected onto the sloping set and captured by the actors with a shaky, Blair Witch-style handheld camera. The idea is sound, if not inspired, suggesting the commodification of violence through the mediated gaze of reality television and video games. It critiques the passive witnessing of bloodshed and brutality that has become increasingly normalised. In practice, however, the projections distract, with a small but noticeable lag between what is said on stage and what appears on screen. Though a minor quibble, they interrupt one of the production’s strongest elements: the immediacy of live performance.
Running just under three hours, including interval, Wright’s Lord of the Flies is a commitment – one that could have been reduced by condensing or cutting some repetitive scenes. Once the boys descend into savagery in the second act, the production loses some of its earlier momentum, with the conflict veering towards monotony after the central transformation. Nonetheless, impassioned performances and inspired directorial choices prevent the action from becoming stale, even as the testosterone radiating from the stage becomes borderline overbearing.
For all its excesses, the sheer scale of Wright’s Lord of the Flies delivers theatre as an experience: visceral, boundary-pushing and occasionally beyond its limits. If subtlety is in short supply, ambition certainly isn’t. This is Lord of the Flies at its most spectacular and sensationalised – unruly, excessive and, at its best, brutally alive.
