Jack Thorne's Lord of the Flies lacks the original's power

Jack Thorne's four-part adaptation revisits William Golding's postwar allegory that exposes the impulse to tyranny, the fragility of democracy and the brittleness of our veneer of civilisation. It arrives in this shining year of 2026 and insists on an island setting where normal social rules no longer apply.

Thorne gives a different character prominence in each episode. It opens with Piggy (David McKenna) coming to after the crash, his specs intact, and follows him as he and Ralph (Winston Sawyers) gather the castaways, including the choirboys led by Jack (Lox Pratt), who becomes a darkly charismatic alternative to Ralph's steady leadership.

The adaptation unfolds slowly and often wordlessly, lingering on idyllic landscapes, the boys at play and empty horizons while jangling strings heighten anticipatory dread. Episodes feel simultaneously bloated and thin, and violent scenes are denatured by a drained palette—a gimmick that, at times, seems to mask an absence of real emotion rather than to deepen it.

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