Lord of the Flies

Sell A Door Theatre’s version of Lord of the Flies is quite clear in its intention: reducing Golding’s famous tale of the beast within children to a conflict between the values of Ralph (an old-fashioned British legalism) and Jack (a mixture of pagan savage and fascist control freak), it tells the story directly for a young adult audience. There is little attempt to interpret Golding’s vision of school kids gone wild, preferring to follow Golding’s value system and conclude with the arrival of the grown-ups as a sort of divine salvation.

The play’s script is at times unnecessarily full, but the company’s performances push through its more turgid interludes. Broad lighting cues capture the atmosphere of oppression heat on the novel’s island, while the simple set –featuring symbolic “fires” and “mountains”  - never transcends its low budget.  Sell A Door’s approach is simple, stressing the narrative and acting over theatrical potential, and relying on its talented young cast to guide the plot’s moral seriousness.

By emphasising the central battle of values, the script fails to individuate the supporting characters: Simon, the mystic and sacrificial victim of the novel, becomes a jabbering wreck, and Sam’n’Eric, inseparable twins, are merely close friends rather than Golding’s double headed entity. Only Piggy retains a strong voice: with his mellifluous accent, he becomes the moral centre for Ralph’s leadership.

This Lord of Flies is aimed at students who are familiar with the novel, bringing out the shades of Golding’s morality through the characters’ personalities and school parties from the classroom into the theatre. As outreach, it is dynamic. The decision to avoid more radical approaches to sound, set and atmosphere is disappointingly conservative. Even the mass ruckus between the boys is safe and realistic: a more dynamic interpretation could lead to a more engaging take on The Flies.

The novel itself is dated by Golding’s anxieties about primal instincts taking over, although his message that the Beast is Man remains resonant. Sell A Door make honest, no-nonsense theatre, connecting to the original text without complicating its meaning.