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The BBC’s making a little bit of history this winter with its forthcoming The Lord of the Flies series: The four-part drama is the first of its kind. Although a pair of feature film adaptations of William Golding’s iconic 1954 novel exist, the story has never been told on the small screen before now. And if the first trailer’s anything to go by, this take is shaping up to be remarkably (and probably disturbingly) accurate.
Even if you haven’t actually read The Lord of the Flies, it’s better than even odds you already know the story. The book’s cultural impact is undeniable, influencing everything from the works of Stephen King (who named his town of Castle Rock after a fort in Golding’s novel) to popular modern-day television series like Yellowjackets, which is, in many ways, a gender-swapped take on the original story. (Heck, you can probably argue that Survivor and all the shows it spawned owe a debt of gratitude to this book.)
A cynical, cautionary tale of young boys and the capacity for violence they carry within them, The Lord of the Flies follows a group of shipwrecked British kids, who find themselves stranded on an island — with no adults — in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after an airplane crash. As they struggle to survive, factions form within the group, and their attempts at civilizational order rapidly dissolve, leading to violence, chaos, and, yes, even death.
The new BBC adaptation hails from writer Jack Thorne, the man behind last year’s surprise smash drama Adolescence, which also dealt with similarly complicated themes of toxic masculinity, herd behavior, tribalism, and violence. (Albeit it in a much more modern and contemporary situation.) In truth, it’s hard to imagine anyone making TV today who’s likely better equipped to tell this particular story at this precise moment in time than Thorne is, but that also means the show itself likely won’t be an easy watch.
The trailer certainly seems to bear that out, showing us a group of boys that’s increasingly fractured and confrontational, with many of the various castaways looking wilder and more feral as the clip goes on.
The series’ cast is made up of over thirty young actors, most of whom are unknowns making their professional onscreen debuts. Each of its four episodes is titled after one of the characters at the core of the story: Ralph (Winston Saywers), the group’s initial leader who prioritizes democracy and order; Jack (Lox Pratt), leader of a rival faction who loves hunting and violence; Piggy (David McKenna), logical, loyal, a believer in order who is the brains behind many of Ralph’s best ideas; and Simon (Ike Talbut), sacrificial, sickly, and repeatedly coded as the most morally correct character in the book. (He’s literally a Christ allegory, because Golding is many things, but subtle is not one of them.)
The Lord of the Flies will premiere on Sunday, February 8, on BBC One, with episodes airing weekly on the channel. All four installments will drop on BBC iPlayer on launch night. Unfortunately, this series doesn’t have an American distributor just yet, which means curious U.S. viewers will have to wait a bit to see where the show ends up.
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