BBC Announces Lord of the Flies Cast, Filming Begins

The BBC and Stan have announced the cast for the upcoming adaptation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, adapted for television by multi-BAFTA award-winning writer Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials, Help, National Treasure, Enola Holmes) and directed by Marc Munden (Help, The Sympathizer). The production is Eleven (Ten Pound Poms, Sex Education) for BBC iPlayer and BBC One in association with Stan, who will air the drama in Australia, and is currently in Malaysia. Sony Pictures Television will distribute the series internationally.

The cast of Lord of the Flies, many of whom are making their professional acting debuts, auditioned at an open casting call with no previous acting experience required. The process was led by award-winning casting director Nina Gold (Game of Thrones, The Power of the Dog, Baby Reindeer).

David McKenna will play Piggy, alongside Winston Sawyers as Ralph, Lox Pratt as Jack, Isaac Talbut as Simon and Thomas Connor as Roger. Noah and Cassius Flemyng have been cast as twins Sam and Eric, Cornelius Brandreth as Maurice and Tom Page-Turner as Bill, along with an ensemble of more than 20 other boys playing “big” and “little” boys in the desert island camp.

Also announced today is that multiple Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer (Dune, Planet Earth, The Lion King), one of the biggest and most respected names in film and television, will co-create an original score for the series with Emmy-nominated Kara Talve (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Prehistoric Planet) for Bleeding Fingers Music.

Lord of the Flies is the story of a group of young schoolboys who find themselves stranded on a tropical island without adults after a plane crash. In an attempt to maintain civilization, the boys organize themselves under the leadership of Ralph and with the support of the group’s intellectual, Piggy. But Jack, who is in charge of the fire department, is more interested in hunting and competing for leadership, and soon begins to pull the other boys away from the order of the group, and ultimately from hope to tragedy.

Jack Thorne’s adaptation will be the first for television. True to the original novel – set in the early 1950s on an unnamed Pacific island – Thorne’s adaptation delves further into the book’s emotional themes; human nature, the loss of innocence and the masculinity of childhood. Each of the four episodes is titled after a character at the heart of the story – Ralph, Piggy, Simon and Jack – offering a subtly different perspective on the boys’ collective plight and how they cope with their circumstances. The series is being produced with the support of the family of Lord of the Flies author William Golding.

Writer and executive producer Jack Thorne says: “I still can’t believe we got the chance to make this beautiful book. The first few days of shooting show that our cast is extraordinary, and Marc is finding a completely new visual language to capture their wonders and the beauty of Malaysia. He’s an incredible storyteller. It’s all so exciting.”

Director Marc Munden says: “This iconic novel about class, conflict and tender male friendship has never been more relevant. It’s a real honour to work with Jack Thorne once again, the wonderful cast of young actors we’ve assembled and the brilliant team at Eleven on this beautiful, fresh adaptation.”

Eleven executive producer Joel Wilson says, “Marc is a visionary. It’s an honor to witness his ability to work with our young actors as he brings Jack’s scripts to life. The visual language he developed with Marc Wolf, our director of photography, would be a sight to behold in any setting. Here, capturing our excellent cast in the jungle, mountains and beaches of Malaysia is extraordinary. Hans has already shared his first sketches for the soundtrack, which are incredibly inspiring. We are honored to be working with him. As I write this, I watch our cast of over thirty boys (aged five to thirteen) fill our mobile Jetty on the beach, and I am thrilled that it has come to fruition.”

Lindsay Salt, Director of BBC Drama, says: “We are delighted to hand the shell over to Jack Thorne, Marc Munden and this exceptionally talented young cast of stars-in-the-making, who tell this timeless story in such an epic and emotionally moving way. Lord of the Flies is British storytelling at its best and most thoughtful, and there is no better home for its first television adaptation than the BBC.”

Stan Chief Content Officer Cailah Scobie said: “One of the greatest books of the 20th century, Lord of the Flies has captivated readers for generations and is loved by millions, and this groundbreaking adaptation is sure to delight Australian audiences. Our partnership with the BBC and the award-winning team at Eleven includes a dynamic, young cast of the very best creative talent, and we can’t wait to share this influential Stan Original Series with our audiences soon.”

Commissioned by the BBC, Lord of the Flies (4×60) is an Eleven and One Shoe Films production supported by Sony Pictures Television for BBC iPlayer, BBC One and Stan. The series is written by Jack Thorne, directed by Marc Munden and produced by Callum Devrell-Cameron (Sex Education, Hanna). Executive producers are Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell for Eleven, Jack Thorne for One Shoe Films, Marc Munden, Nawfal Faizullah for the BBC and Cailah Scobie and Amanda Duthie for Stan.

The series is currently filming in Malaysia, with further filming taking place in the UK later this year.

Lord of the Flies, first published by Faber for a then unknown author, became one of the most popular books on English language teaching in the last 70 years. William Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.

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