Page To Stage

The journey of the production from novel to play and from page to stage is long and fascinating. It began more than two years ago when the literary manager of the National Theatre, Jack Bradley, read Pullman’s trilogy, loved it, and recommended it to as many people as he could, including Nicholas Hytner.

If Hytner was looking for a dramatic challenge here it was: how do you stage a constantly moving epic story involving hundreds of human and non-human characters, told in thousands of brilliantly crafted words, and taking at least thirty-six hours to read aloud?

It wasn’t simply the spectacle or the scale that attracted Nicholas Hytner and made him want to translate the novels into live performance. He recognised in Philip Pullman a writer addressing key contemporary ethical issues, and questioning scientific research and the place of religion in society. His Dark Materials is also about the need to rethink adult-child relationships when childhood itself seems to be under threat, the need to question traditional institutions, and crucially, the possibility of effective action on the part of individuals.

For at the core of Pullman’s narrative is a familiar and very human story about growing up. Lyra, his heroine, undertakes a journey in which she, like all young people before and since, struggles to find out more about herself, who she really is, what matters to her, where she has come from, and where she is going. She travels from childhood to the threshold of adulthood through the emotional minefield that is adolescence.