HIS DARKER MATERIALS
There’s evil all around for Lyra and her new pal Will as the TV version of Philip Pullman’s epic fantasy returns for a new series
After your father kills your best friend, how do you move on? For His Dark Materials’ Lyra Belacqua it’s by crossing a bridge into a new world full of deathly creatures, which also contains a boy who’s as lost as she is.
The hit BBC1 fantasy series is back for a second outing with even more adventure and a new star in Andrew Scott, who was Moriarty in Sherlock. Also returning are the host of talking animals, known as daemons, which are the physical manifestations of the characters’ souls. Teenager Lyra (Dafne Keen) tries to learn about the powerful ‘Dust’ which has opened up the link between the worlds, find her father Lord Asriel (James McAvoy) and evade her equally murderous mother Mrs Coulter (Ruth Wilson). Aeronaut Lee Scoresby is on his own mission to help Lyra.
In semi-abandoned Cittagazze she meets Will (Amir Wilson), who has been caring for his mentally ill mother since his explorer father
John Parry (Andrew Scott) disappeared when he was a child. He has as much reason to be suspicious of people as Lyra. ‘Series one was about Lyra trying to find her kidnapped friend Roger – now she is grieving and angry,’ says the show’s writer Jack Thorne.
‘This series is about learning to trust others and to trust herself.When Lyra meets Will she has just been taught the worst lesson she could be by her own father; he lied to her about who he was, then about what he was doing and then committed an atrocity against her best friend. Will has also grown up in a very difficult environment but they need to be together to reach their destiny.’
The world of His Dark Materials, created by author Philip Pullman, lacks adult role models. Lyra’s parents – who left her in a dusty college – are conniving. So it’s interesting that the new series, based on book two of the trilogy, The Subtle Knife, opens in Cittagazze, which is inhabited only by feral children; the adults have been gobbled by the nefarious Spectres.
The more time Lyra and Will spend toget her t he more t hey become a force to be reckoned with. ‘Lyra and Will are both in this horrible place, but what they realise is they are a puzzle; they complete each other,’ says Dafne. ‘It is a moving depiction of how another person can really save you from horror.’
His Dark Materials returns tonight at 8.10pm on BBC1.