Lord of the Flies at Theatre Works tickets

When a plane crashes and a group of boys find themselves alone on a remote island, they begin, with youthful optimism and a sense of adventure, to build order from the chaos. They make rules, elect leaders, and imagine a world where fairness and cooperation will keep them safe. But order is fragile.

What starts with hope quickly descends into rivalry, loyalty tests and power struggles. Fear creeps in. Imagination becomes threat. And in the absence of oversight and consequence, instincts begin to outweigh ideals.

In this fresh, highly physical staging of Nigel Williams’ adaptation of Lord of the Flies, award-winning director Steven Mitchell Wright (MEDEA: Out of the Mouths of Babes, Ghosts) leads an ensemble of performers through a visceral retelling of William Golding’s literary classic.

Play turns to ritual. Loyalty becomes leverage. Fear redraws the map. In creating their own world, they expose the truths beneath ours: the impulses we carry, the systems we defend, and how little it takes to break them.

Bold, thrilling and deeply human, this production invites us to consider what rises when structure falls away. It asks us what happens when leadership slips into tyranny, fears birth myths, and the line between civilisation and brutality dissolves underfoot.

A gripping, contemporary encounter with a timeless story, one that speaks to the world we live in now as urgently, if not more urgently, than when it was first written.