The book paints a fictional but utterly pessimistic picture of humanity: a group of schoolboys stranded on a desert island descend into chaos and violence, resulting in death. More than fifty years later, in his book De meeste mensen deugen (Most People Are Good, 2019), Dutch author Rutger Bregman rejects the classic “varnish theory”, which claims that beneath a thin layer of civilisation, humans are selfish and heartless creatures. Bregman refutes the thesis that it is precisely “this true nature of man” that emerges in times of crisis.

In bad weather, the gay luxury cruise ship Poseidon's Paradise hits a rock and capsizes at sea. The passengers, a few drag queens, a captain, a DJ and a writer, wash up on a desert island. For the survivors, life on the island seems like an unexpected opportunity, a wet dream, full of glitter and wigs. But gradually, under the motto “survival of the prettiest”, the climate changes into a cruel struggle for power and possessions.

Queen of the Flies is a theatrical adaptation of group dynamics filled with conflicting individual interests: the urge for togetherness, the fear of exclusion, the search for individual self-expression, and the mutual distribution of power. Camping Sunset asks how the original material from Lord of the Flies resonates in a world that constantly balances between fear and connectedness. What happens when these questions are disconnected from stereotypes about masculinity and, in 2025, are questioned and played out by a group in which gender is more of a broad and fluid spectrum?

Camping Sunset previously created Zomergasten (2019), Happiness (2020) and Ten Oorlog (2021). 
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Freek De Craecker:
"Contrary to the example Rutger Bregman cites in his book, the television programme Boys Alone conducted a similar experiment in which they left a group of boys alone in a house for a few days. They subsequently conducted the same experiment with a group of girls. Both groups experienced exclusion and chaos, but with the boys, it was striking how they immediately resorted to destruction and did not know how to resolve arguments. The girls, on the other hand, seemed much more community-oriented and sought ways to deal with bullying as a group.
How can a gender-ambiguous group influence the narrative of Lord of the Flies? Is toxic masculinity also creeping into the drag community (many drag performers are still men)? A programme such as Boys Alone demonstrates that cooperation and violence are both gendered behaviours and employs a binary logic. What if binary thinking is questioned and other forms of masculinity and femininity are performed?
Is evil inherent in human nature and/or in men? Or is it the context that drives people to it? And what context are we talking about? What role does competitiveness play in this?"