Hogging the limelight

8:49am Friday 3rd October 2008

Pilot Theatre’s multi-award winning production of Lord of the Flies is embarking on its 10th anniversary tour and comes to Richmond Theatre from October 7-11.

Lord of the Flies is William Golding’s famous story of a group of young boys whose plane crashes on an uninhabited island. There are no homes, schools or adults and before long the boys’ fragile sense of order begins to collapse. With the discovery of “the beast”, their games take on a more sinister significance and this once well-behaved group of children quickly turns into a bloodthirsty and murderous tribe.

First published in 1955, Lord of the Flies remains a classic, speaking to subsequent generations and being referenced by innumerable artists and art forms from Stephen King to The Simpsons and South Park.

Lachlan McCall, who plays Roger in the production, says: “The play reflects a lot of our culture. It’s about how human beings react without any experience of knowing how to deal with a situation – children are not able to rationalise things and this speaks to people.”

McCall believes the strong multimedia elements of the show (projection is used throughout and there is only one moment of silence in the entire performance) will help audiences relate to the characters.

He says: “It’s a very technical show. The effects heighten the atmosphere and make the audience use all their senses.”

The mixing of multimedia and live performance is something that McCall is used to. He adds: “It has become very important to the nature of theatre and it helps audiences become immersed in a situation by creating the world for them.”

McCall enjoys creating the character of Roger, the boy who in his words “does the dirty work”.

“Roger is in his element among all the chaos, he is the one who takes pleasure in being there,” he says.

But unlike the character he plays, Lachlan McCall is not a child. He is a grown man, and the production does well to ensure the fact that the actors are older than the characters they are playing is not distracting, by ensuring the characters’ childish intuitions and physical characteristics come shining through.

He says: “As a child you respond more instinctively and we’ve tried to capture that.”

For McCall and the seven actors given the chance to run wild on Golding’s island, it is like a second childhood.

Lord of the Flies, Richmond Theatre, The Green, The Green, TW9 1QJ, October 7-11, 0870 060 6651, theambas sadors.com/richmond

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