Casting is announced for Nicholas Hytner’s production of Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage to run at The Bridge in a new stage adaptation by Bryony Lavery.
Taking place twelve years before Pullman’s epic His Dark Materials trilogy, performances are from 2 December 2021 – 19 February 2022 with opening night on 14 December 2021.
The cast comprises Julie Atherton, Holly Atkins, Wendy Mae Brown, Pip Carter, Samuel Creasey, Ella Dacres, Ayesha Dharker, Heather Forster, Naomi Frederick, Richard James-Neale, John Light, Dearbhla Molloy, Tomi Ogbaro, Sid Sagar, Nick Sampson and Sky Yang.
Co-Directors are Emily Burns and James Cousins with designs by Bob Crowley, puppetry by Barnaby Dixon, lighting design by Jon Clark, sound by Paul Arditti, video designs are by Luke Halls and Zakk Hein and music by Grant Olding. James Cousins is also movement director, Kate Waters is fight director and illusions are by Filipe Carvalho.
Two young people and their dæmons, with everything at stake, find themselves at the centre of a terrifying manhunt. In their care is a tiny child called Lyra Belacqua, and in that child lies the fate of the future. And as the waters rise around them, powerful adversaries conspire for mastery of Dust: salvation to some, the source of infinite corruption to others.
La Belle Sauvage was published in 2017 and was followed by The Secret Commonwealth in 2019. His Dark Materials, a ground-breaking production sixteen years ago directed by Hytner at the National Theatre, was also adapted for broadcast on BBC One in 2019 with the second series in 2020. Philip Pullman was knighted in 2019 for his services to literature.
