His Dark Materials On Stage

While I wasn't terribly impressed with the film adaptation of The Golden Compass, I have been deeply impressed with the footage I've seen of the stage adaptation of His Dark Materials.

The integration of puppetry here definitely piques my curiosity, as does the use of digital, visual effects.

As these effects come more within the production budget of smaller companies, might we see even more intriguing applications?

I can only imagine how a puppet, poetry and stage might effectively combine, but I also think the presentation could be quite daring and daunting for the technical challenge.

I'd mentioned this briefly to some colleagues during the Fantasy Matters conference that when we see the daemons presented, the execution is so much more convincing and profound in demonstrating the connection between animal and human than any CGI could hope to convey.

It's one of the few instances where I find myself thinking a work might work best on page and stage, but not film. Intriguing.