Lola Adaja as Ralph and Gina Fillingham as Piggy
We studied Lord of The Flies in school when I was around fourteen, and I remember then Miss Betts posing the question -would the outcome of the novel be any different if the stranded school children had been girls and not boys?
I can't remember the answer we gave but I suspect that kids from a 1977 CSE English lit class would have unanimously plumped for an answer of yes. Girls are much more civilised than boys.
Or they were then in a semi rural Welsh secondary school.
It is interesting therefore, in this age where the differences between the sexes seem so blurred that Emma Jordan's production has an all female cast where the " girls" very believably turn out just as savage and as feral as the little boys.
Maybe it's a sign of the times?
Flies is not an easy watch; there is much shouting and " silly" behaviour where Golding perfectly captures the arbitrary and irritating part of childhood communication and imagination but the tension builds nicely to a fast paced second half where the shit literally hits the fan and the girls descend into out right War.
In this production the Piggy character who could be so irksome in the book is changed from a geek to a stroppy Yorkshire teen and Gina Fillingham brings a much welcomed warmth and humour to the role. A performance equalled by the other lead members of the cast.
Sounds interesting. And as far as comparisons are concerned, I think girls can be just as evil as boys when it comes to power struggle etc.
ReplyDeleteI suspect you are right cro.... some female bloggers we know are nasty pieces of work
DeleteOf course I remember Lord of the Flies, and I've not thought before of girls in the leading roles. That certainly is a different take on it, because there are few things crueller than a schoolgirl... I know because I just attended a high school reunion. 😖😟
ReplyDeleteOh dear what happened
DeleteThere are gentle souls in both genders, and brutes in both. A book I have never read.
ReplyDeleteNot an easy read
DeleteThe film had a big effect on me. Talk about bleak. I think everyone identified with the fat boy in glasses - either as a bully or the bullied. It was the exact opposite of the optimistic hippy thing of the time.
ReplyDeleteI film depressed me more than the book did
DeleteI'm another one who read Lord of the Flies as a CSE English book. I absolutely loved it and loved the original black and white film we went to the cinema to see. I've never thought about how different it would be if it were about a group of castaway girls ... and I don't think I want to dwell on it!!
ReplyDeleteI both loved and hated that book. It was mostly awful to me.. but I was a young girl in North Carolina, mostly still sheltered from such stories and ideas .. I agree with Tom, it certainly was bleak .
ReplyDeleteWe read catcher in the rye soon after it
DeleteThat's not a bag of laughs either
Sounds like a good way to fill a Saturday evening. Better than sitting at home alone. I have no view on Lord of the Flies except that I see no reason why it should be different with girls. It boiled down to the human condition and that is present in all of us.
ReplyDeleteI hope that when "the shit literally hit the fan" that the audience were not showered with it. Perhaps you were issued with plastic ponchos as you went in? Sounds like a gripping production. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteHad I not scrolled down and read this, this is a close on word-for-word comment that I was also going to make, right down to the ponchos.
DeleteBtw: I'll join the list of those who read the book at school, only I'm going right back to 1962!
What was piggys real name, did we ever get to know
DeleteYes. It was David Cameron.
DeleteDavid Cameron? Sounds like a load of Bullingdon to me!
DeleteJust googled "Piggy's real name" - and apparently it's never revealed.
I thought you knew, boys are more upfront and obvious, girls have always been more ruthless.
ReplyDeleteThat's the truth. Nothing on earth is any meaner than a pack if adolescent girls when they decide to bully other girls.
DeleteI'm beginning to realise that
DeleteNever read the book and have never wanted to. Sadly there is enough of those bad behaviors in the real world.
ReplyDeleteHow were the sunflowers received and did you keep a few for your cottage?
Yes I found a bunch of sunflowers and golden daisies
DeleteI read the book in college. It blindsided me, terrorized me. In the last half of the book, I simply went to the last pages of each chapter to see if Pig was still alive. Near the end I saw a ship come into the harbor. I shut the book, end of story. I saw the movie and spent the last half, head in lap, sobbing. I know I could not muster the courage to see a new version. I still wonder why this story gripped me so.
ReplyDeleteHow old were you.....perhaps is was the realisation of death thing
Deletedoesn't surprise me having lived through middle school and high school. girls can be very mean.
ReplyDeleteHaving taught all my working life in a Comprehensive then I can vouch for the fact that girls are much crueller than boys who tend to have a good fight and then get over it.
ReplyDeleteI too read the book in the early 60s. Profound effect. Still have the book I was 'loaned' whoops. Girls are far more vicious than boys.
ReplyDeleteI too read the book at school and then we were shown the film on a T.V. in the school hall. This was the first and only time we were shown a film at school so it was quite exciting. I only remember that it was brutal.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a winner.
ReplyDeleteI for one have/had no belief a group of all women would do any better than a group of all men. Human nature's tendency to form into 'us vs. them' tribes trumps any difference in sex.
ReplyDeleteGirls are much worse to each other than boys. Psychological torture by social media is rife. A young local girl of just nearly thirteen killed herself a couple of weeks ago due to bullying by a group of female/feral young women in her school. Lord of the Flies, which I read for my Higher English in 1967, is entirely credible with the gender changed.
ReplyDeleteRead this book years ago and found it profoundly upsetting. Sadly, society in any form, can so easily be reduced to it's baser instincts if the circumstances are right.
ReplyDeleteAll creatures, great and small can be cruel.
ReplyDeleteTeenage girls are the meanest creatures. Emotional terrorists one patient called them and I thought, yep, that sounds about right.
ReplyDeleteA number of readers have commented that girls are worse than boys but I think the reality is that they are just different in their approach. Boys tend to fight physically and girls use exclusion from social circles.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, our son was psychologically bullied in junior high school. He had been raised not to fight, and fighting was punished in school (unfortunately the cruel words that made him want to fight were not).
I don’t know if it was different times, the fifties, where I lived or what, but there was no bullying that came to physical violence or even extreme verbally among the boys. The girls pretty much got along or if they didn’t would just ignore one another focusing on activities with their circle of friends. I’m not sure in more metropolitan areas that was so true.
ReplyDelete