Miranda in TV Dark Materials

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA is one of the first stars to be cast in the mammoth BBC TV adaptation of Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy His dark Materials, to be made by Oscarwinning director Tom Hooper.

Miranda (right), who created Hamilton, the hit Broadway and West end musical, has been confirmed to play adventurer Lee Scoresby in the eight-part drama filming in Wales (and elsewhere) this summer. it’s a huge undertaking by the BBC and Bad Wolf, the production company run by Jane Tranter, a former drama bigwig at the Corporation. The series has been adapted by Jack Thorne, who dramatised J.K. rowling’s Harry Potter for the stage in The Cursed Child (which is in rehearsal for a Broadway run).

if initial ratings are good, there could be multiple series of Pullman’s stories about schoolgirl heroine Lyra Belacqua and her friend Will Parry, who travel through parallel universes uncovering a plot involving stolen children. The various worlds are peopled with witches and armoured polar bears — including polar bear king iorek Byrnison, a close friend of Texas-born Scoresby, who travels through time and space in a hot air balloon.

The main characters all have a daemon (an animal extension of their soul). Scoresby’s is an arctic hare.

Filming and post-production on His dark Materials will run through to next year, with the dramas likely to be broadcast late in 2019 or early 2020.

The BBC will arrange for them to be shown on terrestrial TV — and perhaps BBC iPlayer, in one big batch like netflix. a film version called The Golden Compass was not so well received — though i really liked nicole Kidman as the sinister Mrs Coulter. Sam elliott played Scoresby.

nicholas Hytner directed a splendid two-part stage adaptation of the epic trilogy at the national Theatre, with a cast that included Ben Whishaw, dominic Cooper, anna Maxwell Martin, russell Tovey and Samuel Barnett.