Darren Chetty suggests that diverse casting in Jack Thorne’s adaptation of Lord of the Flies has failed to respect the themes of racial identity present in William Golding’s original narrative (The BBC’s Lord of the Flies shows why diverse casting doesn’t always work, 19 February). He appears to take this position in order to highlight the lack of direct racism faced by non-white characters in the new TV series. I feel that this is to take a narrow view of how racism operates.
Racism isn’t just playground name-calling. More often than not, it covets the power and agency of black people, seeking either to own or destroy it. Although treated with subtlety, race plays a key role in shaping the identities of the characters Ralph and Jack. One character’s sense of righteousness can be traced to his black, ailing mother, while the other is portrayed as a victim of absentee parents.
Characterising Winston Sawyers as a diplomatic and charismatic Ralph, set against Lox Pratt’s devilishly entitled Jack, may not have been a deliberate casting decision, but throughout the series it serves to highlight how white envy of black capability can lead to an insatiable hunger to drain as much vitality from black endeavours.
Thorne’s adaptation may not directly translate the themes of racial identity from Golding’s original text, but race is of consequence in this new series. We may not be spoon-fed familiar tropes of racial disharmony, but that does not mean the series is devoid of themes all too familiar to those who have lived in the wake of a dominating white spirit born out of spite.
Kayode Ijaola
London
• Darren Chetty feels that the inclusion of black and Asian actors in the TV adaptation of William Golding’s novel “obscures … the original story”. I respect his view, but feel differently, perhaps because of my own life experiences.
The novel is often portrayed as illustrating Thomas Malthus’s argument that the natural state of humans is to be at war, a condition mediated only by social restraints. The adaptation’s writer, Jack Thorne, suggests a different theme by showing us some of the children’s backstories.
I went to a boys’ private boarding school, aged seven, a decade after the novel was first published. I could too easily see, when I read it then, myself and my friends becoming its characters. We were close and supportive, rebellious and sometimes bullied, sometimes bullying (a practice regarded as character-building). We were well educated, but often lonely. A surprising number of us experienced absent or broken families: the range of high-achieving, often wealthy parents, sometimes in the news and not always honourably, would not be credible in a novel. These families had homes or holiday homes around the world – or empire as we were encouraged to think of it, which of course included black and Asian nations, not a few of them capable of fielding privileged children.
In the BBC series we see the product of such homes and such schools, and what that might become in wider society. Or indeed, with hindsight, what it sometimes became.
Mike Pitts
Marlborough, Berkshire
• Darren Chetty may be missing the point of Jack Thorne’s adaptation of William Golding’s novel. The brilliant cast have clearly been chosen for their ability rather than what colour they are or out of any discernible tokenism. Race doesn’t come into it. What all the characters do have in common is class – they are all public-school boys.
Peter Grimsdale
Former BBC and Channel 4 commissioner, London
