Lord of the Flies - BBC TV review

I was sixteen when I read Lord of the Flies for the first time, as part of a small but memorable educational experiment. I'd opted to do English as one of my four A-Level subjects, and my group had two youngish, very trendy teachers, 'Dicky' Junemann and Derek Morris. They decided to ignore the exam syllabus for the first term and introduce us to a range of novels with a view to broadening our literary horizons. At that time, it was an extraordinary thing to do, and I doubt it happened in many schools then or certainly now. But for me, it was brilliant, because broadening my horizons was exactly what it did. I've never forgotten that time, or those teachers, or the books I read (or the efforts that went into making up for much lost time with all the reading we were actually required to do for the exams!)

I loved Lord of the Flies. It's a bleak book and I suppose I didn't 'get' every nuance, but it made a great impression on me. There have always been critics who argue that the picture it presents of humanity is too dark and pessimistic. I didn't agree then, and I haven't changed my mind. Similarly, I vividly remember discussing Waiting for Godot at around the same time with a sixth former who was a year older than me; he thought it was too depressing to be a great play, but again I didn't agree. One can have a positive view of human nature, as I think I do, and still recognise the potential for very dark behaviour in the best of people, let alone the worst. Perhaps this perspective is also relevant to the appeal of crime fiction? (And of course, Lord of the Flies, although not a crime novel in any superficial sense, does deal with murder).

At that time, we were also shown Peter Brook's great film of the book (along with daring films of the time like If) and again I was impressed. So when the BBC announced a four-part series based on the book, I was very keen to watch it. And, having just watched the final episode last night, I must say that I think that screenwriter Jack Thorne and everyone else did a very good job of adapting the story, and capturing its timelessness. The music is striking, as is the cinematography, and the young actors do a great job in challenging roles; it can't have been easy for them.

Lord of the Flies was written in the 50s, but I read it in the 70s, and it felt very timely then. The 70s were a good decade for me personally, but I was conscious that a great deal was wrong with society, and that the potential for mob violence in real life, as in the book, was bubbling just beneath the surface unhappiness of those times. In the same way, screening Lord of the Flies in Britain in 2026 seems - I'm sorry to say - rather like a masterstroke. We live in unhappy times, not so very different in some respects from the 70s, and this classic story remains too meaningful, and too thought-provoking, for comfort.