The first series based on the famous novel by a Nobel prize-winning writer has appeared in streaming: “It will scare as much as Adolescence”

The increasing competition between streaming platforms has meant in recent years that several novels known around the world have also had adaptations in the form of series, not just for the big screen in cinemas. Now, the time has come for the famous 1954 novel by the British writer William Golding.

If Netflix made a series based on the novel “An Age of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez, Disney+ aired the highly successful series “Shogun” and the series “Day of the Jackal” can be seen in Europe on SkyShowtime, HBO Max has now entered “King of the Flies”. It is a 4-episode miniseries based on Golding's novel of the same name, Lord of the Flies.

The British writer, who died in 1991 at the age of 81, published 12 volumes of fiction during his lifetime and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded him the prestigious award “for his novels which, through the insight of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in today's world.”

Even though his later novels were more acclaimed by literary critics, King of the Flies, Golding's very debut volume, is the best known internationally and remains required reading in high schools throughout the Anglo-Saxon world to this day. In other countries it is studied by students of philology and students of the faculties of letters.

“At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, leaving a group of schoolboys stranded there. At first, without any adult supervision, their freedom is cause for celebration; so far from civilization, the boys can do whatever they want. Anything. They try to forge their own society, but fail in the face of terror, sin, and evil. And as order crumbles, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins to reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being saved,” notes the novel's Goodreads description.

“Considered as a parable, an allegory, a myth, a moral story, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, 'Lord of the Flies' is perhaps our most memorable novel about 'the end of innocence, the darkness in the human heart,'” she points out.

The series “King of the Flies” is a BBC production

Golding's novel had two adaptations for the big screen, one in 1963, and the most famous of them, in 1990, directed by British filmmaker Harry Hook. The BBC announced in April 2023 that it would partner with British production company Eleven Film to make the first television adaptation of the novel and began filming in September 2024.

The series premiered on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, the British Broadcasting Corporation's streaming platform, on February 8 this year. But as the BBC iPlayer service is not available outside the UK, the major streaming platforms have entered into a bidding 'war' for the rights to broadcast it to the rest of the world.

In Romania and for subscribers from other countries, the series can be seen from Tuesday, February 24, on HBO Max. In the US, it's available on Netflix. The streaming platform leader has bid higher for its North American home market as the Lord of the Flies series is a Jack Thorne creation.

Thorne, 47, is one of the two creators of “Adolescence,” the Netflix series that became a global hit after its release last spring. Of course, when the BBC commissioned Lord of the Flies 3 years ago, its executives had no way of knowing that it would bear the stamp of an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker.

What do the reviews say about the series “King of the Flies”

Given Thorne's name, The Independent notes in the title of its review that “this bold and brilliant series will terrify parents as much as 'Adolescence'.”

“Like George Orwell's 'Animal Farm', William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies' is often approached by readers too young to fully understand. This adaptation makes no apologies for being aimed at adults. Blood-soaked pig hunters, hypnotic hallucinations, outbursts of sudden and shocking violence: Thorne's island is a brutal place. Yet the BBC also knows this story will resonate with Generation A audiences Z (it is, after all, the basic premise of 'Fortnite'), devouring social satires like 'The Hunger Games' and 'Squid Game' (Squid Game), both of which owe a debt of gratitude to Golding,” notes critic Nick Hilton in his review for The Independent.

He gives Thorne's new series 4 stars out of 5. The BBC gives it the same rating in its own review by well-known critic Hugh Montgomery, who states that “this desert island drama is a 'bold and chilling' nightmare”.

“What Thorne's bold and chilling miniseries manages to do so masterfully is make the narrative work on two levels—naturalistically, as a taut, gripping thriller, and philosophically, as a dark investigation into the evil of collective human behavior,” he notes.

Montgomery points out that Thorne's version of Golding's story, which had its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, retains the book's time setting, with the boys speaking in an archaic, aristocratic British vernacular, but that the series, “as a reinterpretation of a widely studied classic, is surprisingly fresh and distinct”.

Is 'Adolescence' creator's new series too 'slow'?

A less stellar review comes from The Guardian, with critic Lucy Mangan noting in a review giving the series 3 out of 5 stars that “Jack Thorne's interpretation of the classic novel doesn't come close to the power of the original”.

“Everything unfolds very slowly and remarkably wordlessly. Much of the time is devoted to lingering shots of the idyllic landscape, the boys playing, or the empty horizon, while the sounds of creaking strings loom overhead, heightening our chilling anticipation of the horrors to come,” she writes.

“It all seems to rely quite a bit on familiarity with the story, rather than fear-inducing on its own strength. Each episode feels both bloated and thin, a feeling only reinforced by the distortion of the otherwise saturated palette in the scenes of violence,” she notes.

Overall, the new Lord of the Flies series has an 88% approval rating from film critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Although it airs on HBO Max late compared to the UK, the streaming platform has chosen to release only the first episode this Tuesday, with the next 3 coming out a week apart.