The Book Of Dust
Bridge Theatre in London Jusqu’à February 26, 2018, 2 hours 30 minutes
Rating: 
Best Of Enemies
Young Vic, London Jusqu’à January 22, 22 hours 25 minutes
Rating:
The Book Of Dust – La Belle Sauvage The ground isn’t as dry and dusty as it seems. In fact, the rain almost drowns the spires of Oxford in this adaptation of Philip Pullman’s 2017 deluge novel.
Two bickering children work at an Oxfordshire pub. This is their story. Their goal is to rescue a newborn infant from the Magisterium. It’s a Catholic terror group that wants to murder the baby and restore its earthly power.
The kids’ getaway vehicle is a canoe. Lyra is Lyra. She is the star of His Dark Materials, which is this prequel. What is the mysterious cosmic dust exactly? Bryony Lavery (adapter) wisely skips this question.
It is easy to root for the two young leads – Ella Dacres as the bolshie Alice and Samuel Creasey (above, centre) as her loud companion Malcolm
Everyone is upstaged by Lyra, a real baby girl (there’s a roster of them for the run) who gets cuddled by the cast to coos and aaaahs of delight from the audience.
The dark, watery, visual projections are gorgeous and Nicholas Hytner’s direction keeps the momentum going. He includes a drone gyrocopter – a witty miniature of the helicopter from his long-running hit Miss Saigon.
But Pullman’s hatred of Christianity feels misplaced in what is in effect a Christmas show.
As for the animal daemons – every actor has one – they are disappointing, lit-up novelty paper jobs.
It is easy, though, to root for the two young leads – Ella Dacres as the bolshie Alice and Samuel Creasey as her loud companion Malcolm.
They bond as they are chased downstream by a religious Gestapo and Ayesha Dharker’s suavely evil Mrs Coulter in spiked heels.
Pip Carter portrays the child tormentor Bonneville. John Light plays Lord Asriel.
Fans of the book should see it. It was a mix of emotions for me.
Best Of EnemiesJames Graham organizes the 1968 ABC News debates, in which two commentators are featured, Gore Vidal the Lefty gay Democrat writer and William Buckley Jnr the intellectual darling of Republican right.
It feels like the theatre is retaliating against the man who cast David Harewood as the black actor.
They hated each other. Vidal called Buckley at one time a Nazi. Buckley lost it and retorted: ‘You queer.’ Ratings went through the roof.
The bizarre casting decision to have a black actor (Homeland’s excellent David Harewood) playing the white neocon Buckley feels as if the theatre has taken revenge on the bloke.
Charles Edwards portrays the sarcastic Vidal. Both actors’ impressions are slightly off, as is clear if you’ve seen the Oscar-nominated 2015 documentary of the same title that inspired this show.
The cast is populated out with news executives, Chicago’s vulgarian Mayor Daley, Mrs Buckley, Vidal’s boyfriend and assorted 1960s icons, including James Baldwin, Andy Warhol and even Enoch Powell.
A play about television’s role in our political culture, with feisty studio scenes, but this staged version rambles when the cameras aren’t rolling.