New Lord of the Flies adaptation returns to British schoolboys in 1950s

A new television adaptation of William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies returns the story to its British schoolboy origins in the early 1950s.

The four-part series, written by Jack Thorne and directed by Marc Munden, begins streaming on CBC Gem on Oct. 22, with a weekly broadcast on CBC TV.

Thorne pushed back on reading the novel as a simple portrait of humanity's innate savagery. "I don't think that's what Golding wrote," he told CBC News. "I think what Golding wrote was a story about boys that had been brought up by traumatized parents, by parents dealing with a world they do not understand."

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He said the boys, largely from military families, had been "nurtured in [the war's] violence and hate" before playing it out on the island.

The series uses flashbacks to show the boys' lives before the plane crash, including troubled family relationships.

It reveals that characters Jack and Simon are both haunted by abusive fathers, and offers an intimate look at Simon's internal struggles through his diary entries.

In a change from the novel, the character known only as "Piggy" is given a first name, Nicholas or Nicky, played by David McKenna.

Thorne describes the journey of Ralph, played by Winston Sawyers, from "seeing Piggy as Piggy to seeing Piggy as Nicky" as "a rather beautiful arc."

McKenna calls Piggy "the responsible one who wants to keep everything calm and have rules."

Ralph is portrayed as mixed-race, with a black mother and a white military father, adding another dimension to his struggle to maintain leadership.

"He doesn't want to join the bad guys," Sawyers told the BBC, describing Ralph as committed to his principles even as the group falls apart.

The series leans into visual hierarchy, using the striking black uniforms of the school choir to fuel Jack's early rise to dominance.

Lox Pratt, who plays Jack, said the boys are drawn to his character's volatility. "Ralph is interesting because he's a good leader, he prioritizes the right things, whereas Jack doesn't, but he is exciting," Pratt told the BBC.

The adaptation removes the adult pilot character from the 1990 film, leaving the boys entirely on their own.

For director Marc Munden, the story's terror comes from the boys themselves. "The Beast is us," he told the BBC. "The tendency towards conflict and chaos is self-inflicted."

The series was filmed in the dense Malaysian rainforest, with Munden describing difficult conditions marked by "extreme humidity and heat."

The cinematography uses an infrared, "day for night" approach that transforms green foliage into pinks and reds for a hallucinatory feel.

For Thorne, the adaptation is also a warning. "Be careful how we treat our children. Be careful what we allow our children to see," he told CBC News. "We live in a time when it seems easier to hate than it is to love."

With files from CBC News