Blasts from the Past: Lord of the Flies

‘I was extremely doubtful about whether it could be done.’ This was the response of the writer Nigel Williams when his publisher, Faber and Faber, asked him to consider adapting William Golding’s dystopian classic, Lord of the Flies, for the stage. It was 1990. Following the publication of the book in 1954 several adaptations, including two film versions, had been made but none with the approval of Golding himself. Faber and Faber, as publisher to both Williams and Golding, were perfectly placed to broker an authorised text. An introduction was arranged and, despite his reservations, Williams went to spend a weekend with Golding. ‘He is both brilliant and modest, as well as being very interesting,’ Williams later recalled. ‘We sat and got drunk one evening, talked about life and art, and when I returned I started work.’

‘It was clear to me, from that conversation, that there were many things in the book that the two film versions had missed. The power of the novel doesn’t only lie in the story – although Golding is a consummate storyteller – but in its closely worked references to the English political system and its extraordinary use of magic and ritual. It was these qualities that made me think that it could be a play as well as a book.’ – Nigel Williams, writing in Cabbages & King’s, 1991

Williams worked quickly and soon had a script ready, which Golding approved. David Leveaux from the Royal Shakespeare Company came on board as director. Then somebody suggested that they first try out the play in a boys’ school. At the time, Nigel Williams had three sons in the junior school at King’s. He knew that the drama department, under the leadership of French teacher Alan Dennis, was very good. Willams set up a meeting and it was clear that he and Alan Dennis were in complete agreement about how to stage the play. By the summer of 1990, it was cast. (Only one of Williams’ sons took part in the play: Jack Williams played Simon.)

Last year, Alan Dennis very generously donated much of his own archive of material relating to junior school productions to the school archive. This gift included several photographs, posters, programmes and an original working copy of the script for Lord of the Flies. The photos from the production, many of them in black and white, capture rehearsals and behind the scenes action as well as the performance. They are incredibly evocative. Boys in ragged clothes, with dishevelled hair and faces painted; a desolate, near empty landscape.

Some of the images are annotated, revealing the effort that went into creating the island on which the boys were stranded.

• 3,290 ft of scaffold tubing, 1,200 joints/couplings
• 22 metres of flax to cover the ‘beach’
• 60 metres of green hessian drapes
• 640 sq ft of chipboard
• 72 metres of 2x4 wood
• 900kg of sand

The play opened on 5th December 1990, in the relatively new Collyer Hall Theatre, as part of the school’s Festival of Music and Drama. William Golding was in attendance. When asked, directly afterwards, what he thought of the junior school’s version of his book he replied, ‘I have not yet digested the experience, but I was fascinated by it.’ He later wrote letters to the headmaster and Alan Dennis praising the production and thanking all the boys and staff for the warm welcome he had received. According to the official William Golding website, he had watched that first performance with ‘tears in his eyes’.

As for Nigel Williams, he had nothing but praise for all those involved at King’s:

‘It is very hard to write about the experience without sounding like a writer who has temporarily taken leave of his senses and turned into the kind of dim but enthusiastic schoolmaster I didn’t meet at King’s. Phrases such as “everyone worked fantastically hard” or “somehow the lines got learned” don’t actually describe the rather extraordinary experience of watching a group of boys put on a performance that had more energy and skill than many professional productions with which I have been associated. But, somehow, they are the phrases I want to use. Bill Golding, who said to me, at one stage, that when he was a schoolmaster he had seen enough school plays to last him a lifetime, found himself, I think, both moved and surprised by what he saw. That a very great writer responded in that way is a tribute to the school and to Alan’s production.’

Nigel William’s adaptation was first professionally produced in July 1995 by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. It is still performed around the world to this day.

As ever, please do email if you have stories to share or questions about the school archive: I can be contacted at archive@kcs.org.uk. Or click here to complete a written questionnaire if you have memories you would like to submit to our Recollections of King’s project.

Dr Lucy Inglis | School Archivist