In this 'Lord of the Flies,' the boys get more backstory but the tragedy remains the same

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This article contains some spoilers for “Lord of the Flies” on Netflix.It was the middle of the night.Plagued by insomnia, the 11-year-old British boy pulled a slender book off his mother’s shelf, one she had swiped from school where she taught.“Lord of the Flies.”The novel had a visceral impact on the young boy and stayed with him as he later explored the lives of tweens and teens while co-writing the play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” and the film “Wonder” and writing the TV series “His Dark Materials” and “Adolescence.”“‘Lord of the Flies’ is the foundation stone of my understanding of the world,” says Jack Thorne, who now has brought the book to life in a miniseries premiering in the U.S.

on Netflix Monday.“I’ve lived with this book for 36 years, re-reading it throughout and the kids have lived in me.” Television Jack Thorne’s adaptation is largely faithful to William Golding’s 1954 novel, but with the help of director Marc Munden, they added some flourishes.Thorne’s adaptation is largely faithful to William Golding’s 1954 novel.

A plane carrying British schoolboys during a wartime evacuation crashes on a remote tropical island; no adults survive, but 30 kids do, a mix of “little ‘uns,” ranging in age from 5 to 6, and the main characters, all approaching their teens: Ralph, charming and openhearted, is quickly elected “chief”; Piggy, the smartest and nerdiest of the older boys, has the right ideas about how to survive but becomes an immediate target of the bullies; Jack, a choir singer who names himself “head hunter” and foments a rebellion against Ralph and Piggy; and Simon, a vulnerable introvert, who is out of sync with the more rambunctious choir boys turned hunters.Under Piggy and Ralph, the boys start off by building shelters, creating a signal fire, and gathering food and water.But the hunters soon s...