“KILL the pig, cut his throat, spill its blood,” goes the chant from William Golding’s classic novel, Lord of the Flies. For actor Daniel Buckfield it’s a phrase that heralds his violent demise.

“I get bludgeoned to death and then pushed off a cliff once a night,” says Daniel who plays Piggy in a new stage-adaptation.

The production by the Sell a Door Theatre Company, has been praised by audiences and critics alike and opens for a two-night run at Lighthouse in Poole on Thursday.

Golding’s novel explores themes of bullying, power, identity and violence that shook a complacent postwar Britain with its exposure of man’s universal weaknesses. It went on to win Golding the Nobel Prize for Literature and remains as relevant today as when it was first penned in 1954.

His story follows a group of adolescent schoolboys marooned by a plane crash on an uninhabited island. As they battle against the elements for survival they also begin to battle against each other for supremacy.

“It’s a piece of literature that has gone down in history for a reason, because it’s accessible to everyone. On the surface it’s a story of good versus evil, but it’s also about leadership, rules and regulations. You need a leader to keep you on the straight and narrow,” says Daniel, 22.

• Lord Of the Flies runs at the Lighthouse Poole on February 9-10 and features the voice of Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville as the Naval Officer.