Closing the main-house season at Chichester Festival Theatre this autumn will be William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies - and it will be “absolutely explosive,” the CFT promises.

Adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams, directed by Anthony Lau, it will run from September 19-October 11 – deliberately timed as the new academic year begins so as to maximise the chances of the theatre extending its school, college and university audiences.

Last year Chichester Festival Theatre artistic director Justin Audibert felt he had slightly mistimed The House Party in terms of maximising its audience from the world of education. This time with the Golding he will be hitting the start of the new school year with an adventure which will take us right into the heart of darkness.

A plane crash on a desert island abandons a group of young survivors to fend for themselves. Quickly, tribal loyalties start to form. Despite attempts by Ralph and Piggy to keep order, school rules are shed along with their uniforms, and friendly alliances fast become ferocious divisions.

It is a show that Justin is convinced will pack an enormous punch to round off the season:

“You are going to get the belly laughs in The Government Inspector and then it's going to be tearing your heart in Anna Karenina. And then I'm going for total joy and bliss with Top Hat and then it will be a real punch in the guts with Lord Of The Flies. It is going to be an absolute total experience all the way through on the Festival Theatre stage.

“Anthony Lau Will be directing Lord Of The Flies and it feels very pertinent at the moment to be doing this masterpiece of English literature that deals with man's inhumanity to man. I think Anthony is going to do something absolutely explosive in our auditorium with that show, and I think we are going to feel like we are on that island with these wild young people running round and round us. It is going to be an absolute edge of the seat, heart in the mouth show.

“It is also such an important show on the school curriculum. It will be a brilliant chance for us to initiate relationships with schools. As we go into October the feeling in the organisation is that this is absolutely the show we want to be doing.”

Full season coming up:

• Tom Rosenthal in The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, a new adaptation by Phil Porter, directed by Gregory Doran, April 25-May 24, Festival Theatre

• Mark Addy and Jenna Russell in The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, a new musical adapted by Rachel Joyce from her own multi million-selling novel, directed by Katy Rudd, May 5-June 14, Minerva Theatre

• Natalie Dormer in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, a new adaptation by Phillip Breen, directed by Phillip Breen, June 7-28, Festival Theatre.

Beverley Knight in Marie And Rosetta by George Brant, directed by Monique Touko a co-production with Rose Theatre and ETT, June 25-July 26, Minerva Theatre.

• Top Hat, music & lyrics by Irving Berlin, based on RKO's Motion Picture, adapted for the stage by Matthew White & Howard Jacques, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, July 14-September 6, Festival Theatre.

• Choir by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, directed by Hannah Joss, August 2-30, Minerva Theatre

• Giles Terera in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, directed by Justin Audibert, September 6-October 4, Minerva Theatre.

• William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies, adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams, directed by Anthony Lau, September 19-October 11, Festival Theatre

• Safe Space by Jamie Bogyo, directed by Roy Alexander Weise, October 11-November 8, Minerva Theatre.

• Stiles and Drewe’s The Three Little Pigs, music by George Stiles, book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe, a co-production with Unicorn Theatre, December 6-28, Minerva Theatre.

• A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig, adapted for the stage by Philip Wilson, music by Tom Brady, lyrics by Philip Wilson and Tom Brady, directed by Dale Rooks, performed by Chichester Festival Youth Theatre in their 40th anniversary year, December 15-31.

Tickets from £10: cft.org.uk or 01243 781312. Prologue: 9,000 £5 tickets are available for 16-30 year-olds across all Festival 2025 productions; sign up for free at cft.org.uk/prologue.