Sunday, January 18, 2004

Theatre — His Dark Materials Part 2

This week, part 2 of His Dark Materials. Quite as well staged as the first half, and completely excising the whole wheelie-world digression - frankly, while Pullman is not at the JK Rowling extreme of Harry Potter and the Desperate Need of an Editor, the prolixity of The Amber Spyglass approached that modern nadir, the popular author's work being sacrosanct.

This made the latter half much better on the stage than in the books - though of course it was still shackled to the same safe moralistic outcome, for all the flim-flam sure-to-shock Republic of Heaven stuff, and ignoring the fact that in all the alternate worlds in its universe of discourse, what could be made once - the gate-cutting knife - could be made again, and again, and again.

Overall, better than the books, nice to watch, pity about the fact that the storyline can't sustain its daring all the way through.

No comments :