After three hours of a confusing evening based upon Philip Pullman’s various novels, one’s sympathies lie with the directors of this sprawling, two-part epic (part two comes later this week)
Pullman’s moral theme, which lies at the heart of the evening and seems to touch on Zoroastrian religious traditions, uses on several occasions a curious device known as an Alethiometer - one slip in crowded dialogue like this or a wobbly consonant and you’re immediately lost - which can tell you anything about anybody. But, as this frequently toe-curling evening dragged along - with its longueurs punctuated by trivia and slices of banal dialogue, which a strong company did its level best to lift into viable drama - His Dark Materials revived, for this reviewer, trace memories of other plays and films.
Mrs Coulter, for example, is a dead ringer for Cruella de Ville, although Charlotte Asprey, delightfully menacing in no-nonsense high heels and fur fabric couture, does give the part a convincing shape. The same goes for John Hodgkinson’s equally imposing Lord Asriel.
The puppeteers who work the large, hand-held puppets, which represent the daemons (common, it seems, to all ages and cultures) of several leading characters, are fascinating performers in their own right, particularly Gerard Carey as Lyra Belacqua’s daemon Pantalaimon and Ben Thompson as Mrs Coulter’s monkey demon, although the puppets can become a tad intrusive.
But in this first part, we are left finally with an assortment of power-mad monks and clerics foaming at the mouth until the real name of Lyra Belacqua is revealed - Amy McAllister coping excellently with a huge role as the 12-year-old goodie.
It is a revelation which will doubtless take another three, mainly humourless, hours to accomplish.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
Content is copyright © 2012 The Stage Media Company Limited unless otherwise stated.
All RSS feeds are published for personal, non-commercial use. (What’s RSS?)
