Preparing for the production

What preparation did you do before starting work on this production?

Will I read the novels and now I’m reading them again. I chose not to see the film. I think film as an art-form is very different to theatre, theatre is more gestural, more imaginative in how it tells the story and I didn’t want to be influenced by the film. For example, in the theatre version a bear is represented by a bear head on an actor’s hand, and of course, it is making no pretence to be real, but it is drawing you in to a theatrical moment full of tension and suspense.

So, what research did you do?

Will I spent time trying to familiarise myself more with where Philip Pullman was coming from. Why did he write these books? Why did he choose this subject matter? When I read the books I wanted to try to understand what the exact story was he was trying to tell us, both in terms of the personal experiences of Lyra and the bigger issues of religion and faith.