Review | Lord of The Flies at Chichester Festival Theatre - a new take on a literary classic

And an interesting take it is on the novel, too.

To say the stage is bare is an understatement; the furthest recesses of the backstage area are on view. What scenery there is comprises road cases, a piano, a scaffold tower and very little else.

Director Anthony Lau's take avoids realism – the performances he coaxes from his cast are stylised to match the setting – and the lighting-plot runs alongside, with the audience often as brightly lit, by the both stage- and house-lights, as the cast.

The novel is set during a fictional world war, roughly around the time of its writing. If Lau has chosen to ignore this time-setting is not clear; certainly the schoolboys who find themselves stranded on a Pacific island behave very much as stereotypical literary 1950s' schoolboys would – but then Piggy (the excellent Alfie Jallow) and Ralph (promising newcomer Sheyi Cole) fist-bump when they greet each other; confusion set in and – I must confess – stayed pretty much in place until the second act. That said, the performances shine, particularly Ali Hadji-Heshmati (Simon), Cal O'Driscoll (Roger) and Ruben Reuter (Sam).

Some of the complexities and details of the novel are skirted round, giving rise to audience confusion (particularly regarding the nature of the imaginary "beast" in the jungle) and there was a good deal of overtalking at the beginning of the first act which also added to a lack of clarity. This mellows by the second half which stood head-and-shoulders above the first.

The ending matches that of the novel, but the resolution as given in this adaptation was just too fast. From the conclusion of Piggy's story to the end of the play happens in the blink of a theatrical eye and with no real sense of self-horror in the schoolboys.

The quality of the cast is beyond question; I wonder if a rethink on the writing may make this as satisfying a performance as the book is a read.

Until October 11.