00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to speak to
00:06Riley Woodford this morning, not least because Riley, you're in Redlands, which was sensational
00:10on the Festival Theatre stage, but now for something completely different, you couldn't
00:14get more different, The Lord of the Flies. Wow, the final play, a final play in the main house
00:21season this year. What on earth do we make of it? It's just got the most appalling view of us,
00:26isn't it, as humanity. We're not great, are we, according to Mr Golding? No, we're not,
00:33and I think, yeah, first off, thank you for having me. Great to speak to you. Yeah, it doesn't
00:39paint humanity in a great light at all, but I think with the current climate of the world
00:44and the current, you know, it is quite cyclical, isn't it, when he wrote this, it was a time
00:52where things weren't particularly great, and now we look now, and it's still able to be studied
00:58in schools, and still able to be put on in regional theatres, and it still has some truth
01:04and importance, and I think that is a real, it's exciting, but also quite gary. The relevance
01:10being that as humans, we are generally consistently awful. Yeah, consistently awful, and consistently
01:15flawed, and whether that be murder, or whether that be, you know, many of the other topics
01:21that the play pushes, you know, yeah. So what do you think the play is saying, then? Is it a warning,
01:29or is it? No, less of a warning, more of a reflection for me, personally. I think, yes, it could be a
01:37warning to some people that may be oblivious to things, but for me, in rehearsals, and reading
01:45the play, and reading the novel, it's very much a reflection, and it holds that mirror up, like
01:54the best theatre does, and you look at it and think, oh, wow, is this, oh, I need to now look at
02:03myself, and how I hold myself. So, yeah. Of course, that irony is, you start off as sweet little
02:10choir boys, don't you? Yeah, yeah, we start off as choir boys, and we're in our lines, singing our
02:15songs, and all of a sudden, we are, the gate's open, and there we are on this island, able to do
02:23what we want, when we want, and how we want. And as young boys, with a community, that, you know,
02:30this choir was a community, or is a community, and you're meeting new people, and that dynamic
02:36is going to change when there's no adults around. So, could it be that collectively, individually,
02:40we're not awful, but collectively, it's the peer pressure that makes us awful? Yeah, collectively,
02:45I guess individually, maybe not, but collectively, it's that, you know, you egg people on, and there's
02:52bullies involved, and you've got, it's a competition, it's how far can you jump, how high can you jump,
02:57I can jump higher, oh no, I jumped too high, oh, no, let's go higher, shall we? And pushing
03:03the boundaries, pushing the limits, all for other people, which I think, yeah, this play
03:10absolutely tackles in fucking loads. I don't give it away, but it's so intriguing from our
03:16point of view, what on earth this is going to look like on that stage? It's going to be
03:20striking, is it? Absolutely striking. I think it's a really, Anthony and the team have
03:27come up with some incredible ideas that really tackle the humanness, not just the violence
03:35of this play. Like, these are boys. Ultimately, these are young boys. And, you know, I really
03:42hope that we're able to present that and give that to the audience. And yeah, it's a real
03:52fuzzy, like, exciting room to be in, as quoted from Anthony, our director, who's absolutely
03:59a dream to work with. He, yeah, it's going to be a really exciting telling of this, and
04:07not, I wouldn't say traditionally, you know, told. Yeah.
04:13Well, it sounds like a really exhilarating, if not to say rather frightening, end of the
04:19summer season. Really lovely to speak to you. Good luck with everything. And thanks so much
04:23for your time. Thank you so much.
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