REVIEW: Matthew Bourne’s Lord of the Flies -Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Regular readers of this blog will know that my love for the work of Matthew Bourne and his company New Adventures knows no bounds. But at first glance William Golding’s dystopian masterpiece Lord of the Flies doesn’t seem like material ripe for adaptation as a dance work. It is testament to the vision of New Adventures and Re:Bourne that Golding’s powerful and affecting work loses none of its ability to shock and awe.
Now back on the stage where the whole new adventure began, this emotive adaptation does full justice to Golding’s narrative: raw, visceral and genuinely moving, it is a theatrical tour de force, brilliantly accompanied by Lez Brotherston’s inventive set and Paul Groothuis eardrum pounding, primitive sound design.
The action is transferred from deserted island to deserted theatre. A group of schoolboys find themselves abandoned: with no adults around they start to make their own rules and create their own civilisation, before order breaks down with tragic consequences.
Bourne’s professional company are joined seamlessly by young talent from the Greater Glasgow area and the combination brings these legendary characters to life in electrifying fashion. Intense, ferocious and utterly spell-binding it will take you on a journey which will leave you emotionally wrung out by the end.