Here we watch Malcolm, who has grown up in a pub, evolve as he realises that the girl baby is in danger because prophecies have foretold that she threatens the repressive church-like Magisterium. The fact that an individual’s daemon shifts shape until they fully mature underlines the idea that we become the kind of adult that we are through the intellectual and moral decisions that we make. Pullman has described The Book of Dust trilogy (this is an adaptation of the first book, La Belle Sauvage) as an exploration of consciousness. For the tiny minority who aren’t familiar with Pullman’s concept of the daemon as the manifestation of a person’s inner-self, we’re able to watch Malcolm’s daemon shift from mouse, to lizard to kingfisher, unable to settle as one life-form till he reaches adulthood. Samuel Creasey plays Malcolm Polstead, the bookish wide-eyed 12-year-old who becomes embroiled in forces beyond his control when he goes to visit potato-planting nuns and discovers they are concealing a baby. Now he has collaborated with playwright Bryony Lavery to bring this fluent, fluid adaptation of the prequel to His Dark Materials – The Book of Dust – to the stage, delving into Pullman’s myth-infused landscape to create a compelling narrative for our times.

The book of dust theatre