Classic tale still resonates in a world on the brink

Lord of the Flies Leeds Playhouse ★★★★☆

In many ways, Lord of the Flies is safe programming, certain to attract school groups. William Golding’s novel is a staple of the curriculum – a rite of passage for generations of teens. It could easily feel tired and overdone. Yet Leeds Playhouse makes a compelling case for this as a story that still has new things to say.

There’s a distinctly modern flavour to Amy Leach’s production. It has the pacy, dynamic quality that Leach excels at, right from the first. We see the kids ripped from home, clutching bags of belongings, before they are thrust headlong into disaster. Their plane crashes in what seems like a paradise, but Max Johns’s monochrome landscape of black trees and white stone is immediately foreboding.

Our castaways are not privileged schoolboys but a diverse group of youngsters, adding new textures to the conflict that eventually erupts on the island. Choir leader Jack wears his status with insecurity, bridling at the idea of leadership being assumed by Ralph – reimagined here as a girl. Jack’s bid for power reads as a toxic form of white male anxiety, as he struggles to reassert the “natural” hierarchy.

The young cast are excellent, bringing fresh life to familiar characters. As Jack, Patrick Dineen is always working hard

to intimidate and control. Jason Battersby’s Roger is effortlessly sinister, moving with a selfassured, sneering menace. In the central role of Ralph, Sade Malone is by turns commanding and vulnerable, while Jason Connor’s Piggy is decent, sensible and mildly annoying, making his exclusion all too believable.

In this version, Golding’s tale remains startlingly resonant. At a time of renewed nuclear fears, the children’s belief that they might be the only humans left alive invokes very current anxieties. And it speaks to crises of leadership and delusions of British superiority. This is an apocalypse for now.

Until 8 April, then touring