Lord Of The Flies comes to BBC1 as a Sunday night primetime epic, and while I’ve never seen any previous adaptation of this, nor read the novel, I instantly knew certain nonsense, as we see Piggy (David McKenna) slap a fly on his cheek and fly go squash, since in reality, the fly would’ve long since moved, because they see the world at a different speed to humans.
A load of young boys have some how survived a plane crash, first showing us Piggy (before moving on to others), who we see trying some food in this jungle, but only before realising it’s rotten…
One problem is that this feels more like a Saturday afternoon TV drama than a 9pm Sunday primetime one, but with added arty-farty nonsense, such as setting the awful plinky plonky music to individual images of each boy’s face close-up. WHY?!
Oh, and the occasional dead body like that of the pilot, which is a bit grim.
Who’s going to be leader of the gang? Who cares? More time has been spent on curating a diverse cast, rather than the script or direction. Plus, all the kids try and act as if they’re aping some famous actor, when they’re not them, nor anyone else.
When Alan Partridge once asked which is the best Lord: Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Dance, or Lord Of The Flies? Definitely not the latter. This is just terribly tedious.
Thanks to our friends at BBC for the screeners prior to release.
Lord Of The Flies? begins tomorrow on BBC1 at 9pm.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but when it is, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
However, you can buy the novel here.
https://amzn.to/4kmLFvt
Once broadcast, the episodes will be on BBC iPlayer.
Director: Marc Munden
Producer: Callum Devrell-Cameron
Screenplay: Jack Thorne
Novel: William Golding
Music: Cristobal Tapia de Veer, Kara Talve, Hans Zimmer
Cast:
Jack: Lox Pratt
Simon: Ike Talbut
Piggy: David McKenna
Roger: Thomas Connor
Bill: Tom Page-Turner
Little Un 2: Jake FJ Miller
Big Un 4: Eliot Turner
Robert: Rafael de Belligny
Philip: Beau Thompson
Percival: Freddie Lee-Grey
Frankie: Harrison Metcalf
William: Felix Tandon
Peter: Xavier Edmead
Jasper: Kai Wilson
Big Un (Theodore): Gus Turner
Johnny: Fred Jones
Little Un: Alfie Kiely
Fred: Daniel Mays
The Naval Officer: Tom Goodman-Hill
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.