The BBC's 'Lord of the Flies' Promises To Introduce a New Generation of British Talent

Every actor cites two rules as they break them: Never work with children or animals. The theory behind this statement is that working with either requires working with someone who cannot yet fully understand they are acting. But what if the adaptation you're undertaking is a child-centric series? It's a problem that's only become more prevalent in the current century, with the rise of YA novels adapted for the screen increase. Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and His Dark Materials are three examples of books where the protagonists are practically prepubescent, and all three handled the situation in the same way: Cast relatively unknown kids and then give the adult roles to the best A-list talent the British have, in hopes the latter help teach the former. But these stories at least have adult characters to cast. For BBC's newest undertaking, Lord of the Flies, there are no adults; in fact, that's the entire premise of the story.

For Harry Potter's child cast, worldwide auditions were held, and director Christopher Columbus was instrumental in finding Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Matthew Lewis, et al. In His Dark Materials, the starring role was a nepotism hire; Daphne Keene's father, Will Keene, also played a significant role in the series. However, neither had nearly the same ratio of child to adult characters as Game of Thrones nor did either of those franchises ask their underage cast to go through anything close to the types of traumatic scenes that Thrones did, and that's with the show aging up half the characters. Lucky for that series, it had a secret weapon: casting director Nina Gold, whose 30 years of credits include everything from Vera Drake to the latest trilogy of Star Wars films. Along the way, she has launched the on-screen careers of Emma Corrin (The Crown), Tom Holland (Wolf Hall), Rosalind Eleazar (Harlots), Indira Varma and Tobias Menzies (Rome), and Daisy Ridley.

In most cases, when most of the cast is full of unknowns, there's usually at least one "name" to hang the project on — Sean Bean as Eddard Stark, for example. However, Lord of the Flies is all unknown, a gathering of Gen Alpha actors who no one has seen before, at least not in anything easily recallable. Instead, the BBC leans heavily on Gold's name as the casting director, hoping people recognize it from the articles about her.

The last time anyone adapted Lord of the Flies was in 1990, and if you don't recognize any of the kids from the film, that's because only one managed to walk away with a career: Paul Balthazar Getty. The BBC hopes Gold's magic touch and knack for finding raw child actor talent who become household names continues the streak. Also hoping for that: the kids themselves, including David McKenna (Piggy), Winston Sawyers (Ralph), Lox Pratt (Jack), Ike Talbut (Simon), Thomas Connor (Roger), Cornelius Brandreth (Maurice), Tom Page-Turner (Bill), and Noah and Cassius Flemyng (Sam and Eric). The cast will have an ensemble of 20+ other boys playing the desert island camp’s “big ‘uns” and “little ‘uns.”

Here's the synopsis:

Lord of the Flies is an iconic 1950s story from William Golding of a group of young schoolchildren who find themselves stranded on a tropical island with no adults following a deadly plane crash. In an attempt to remain civil, the boys organize themselves, led by Ralph and supported by the group’s intellectual, Piggy. 

Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials) wrote all series episodes, director Marc Munden (Utopia) helms all installments, with Callum Devrell-Cameron producing and Hans Zimmer set to do the score. Thorne and Munden executive produce alongside Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell for Eleven, Nawfal Faizullah for the BBC, and Cailah Scobie and Amanda Duthie for Australian streaming service Stan. The series is filming in Malaysia before moving to the U.K. later in 2024.

Lord of the Flies is set to debut on the BBC and Stan in 2025. The series has not yet picked up an American producer, but it's a safe bet one will board soon.