Lord of the Flies
Chichester Festival Theatre
Fri 19 Sep – Sat 11 Oct 2025
It is often said that a football match is a game of two halves. This production of William Golding’s celebrated and widely read novel published in 1954 could be described as a company of two halves.
A plane crashes on a desert island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast. As the boys’ delicate sense of order fades, so their childish dreams are transformed into something more primitive, and their behaviour starts to take on a savage significance.
So, let’s start with the first half – the acting company who manage to rise above the disappointing second half. There are some splendid performances including Sheyi Cole as Ralph, Cal O’Driscoll as Roger and in particular, Alfie Jallow as Piggy and Ali Hadji-Heshmati as Simon. Tucker St. Ivany as bad boy Jack is simply not frightening enough although this isn’t helped by being asked to dance around as if he is auditioning for the role of Billy Elliot.
It is my job as a reviewer to encourage people to support their local theatre, however, it is also my responsibility to be honest when critiquing any production I attend and that is made all the more difficult when the theatre in question have been so welcoming prior to the performance. Which brings me to the second half – the creative team. There are positives. Matt Daw’s lighting is stark and the appearance of the parachutist is the only genuinely shocking moment of the whole show. The lighting of the first fire is handled cleverly and Daw manages to create a realistic impression of the flames getting out of hand. Together with Giles Thomas’ spooky soundscape, they manage to make the most of Georgia Lowe’s simplistic and uninspiring set design.
I remember reading the book for the first time in my teens and the three ‘killings’ were genuinely haunting as I witnessed the savagery and brutality leap off the page. Anthony Lau has directed these barbaric acts messily with very little cohesive thought evident. The first is just funny. One of the actors wearing a pig’s head that must have been bought from Smiffy’s Fancy Dress actually elicits laughter from the first night audience but it is the carcass of the dead animal here represented by a huge piñata that left many of us open-mouthed. It looked like the remnant of a production of Jack and the Beanstalk and when it was eventually opened up to reveal sweets and packets of crisps I was slightly disappointed Silly Billy didn’t throw a bag of cheese and onion in my direction.
The second ‘murder’ which is genuinely frightening in the book was like watching a homo-erotic B movie from the 1960s. My guest for the evening described it as a bit ‘Ken Russell’ although I was reminded more of Willy Russell and his teen musical Our Day Out. The third and final act of savagery is the most anti-climactic of all and for anyone who has seen Laurel and Hardy’s short film The Music Box, it is clear where the inspiration came from. This might also explain why there is an upright piano in the middle of an uninhabited island.
Chichester Festival Theatre, quite rightly, has an excellent reputation for producing first-class productions many of which transfer to London’s West End. This isn’t one of them.
⭐⭐
Reviewer: Patric Kearns