The multi-award-winning screenwriter Jack Thorne, of Help and This is England '90 fame, is writing the four-part series, telling the universally loved story of a group of young boys and their struggle to survive while stranded on a tropical island.

In an attempt to keep the peace, the boys organise themselves by appointing a leader in Ralph, who's supported by the group's intellectual, Piggy. But there is a rebel in their midst in Jack, who's in charge of signal fire duty but is more interested in hunting and vying for leadership.

As Jack draws other boys away from the order, the group descends into anarchy, and ultimately tragedy.

Eleven Films' Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell are executive producing the series. It was Wilson with whom Thorne was talking in his kitchen when the idea for the project was born.

"[Wilson] said 'go on, name it, the one you'd like to do but don't think you ever will get the chance to' and I said Lord of the Flies, a book that left a scar on me like no other," said Thorne.

"Joel shot up and said he’d been pestering the Golding family’s representatives for years. Soon after, he found a way to Judy Carver, and then brought me in and I am so delighted they've trusted us with this incredible book."

Judgy Golding Carver, William Golding's daughter, has welcomed Thorne and Wilson's involvement and believes her father would approve. "My father wrote the novel in a passionate, visionary response to the aftermath of war. He understood that its relevance would not die away.

"I believe he would welcome the freshness and vigour with which Jack and Joel undertake the project, and he would certainly be touched by their intense commitment."

Lord of the Flies was first published by Faber in 1954, and Golding was then an unknown author. It has since become one of the most popular books on English curricula for the last 70 years, and Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.

Thorne commented on its enduring appeal: "It is a book, I think, full of love as well as cruelty, about how we survive as people and the ways we undo ourselves. It is a TV show we hope families will watch together on the sofa and unpick just as I unpicked the book with my Mum as a kid.”