It’s taken Lou and I about three years to watch the whole of His Dark Materials. We finally got to the last episode this evening.
Typically in the time we’ve taken watching it I ended up working with Will who plays a baddie, but was already dead by the time I met him so I don’t get to witness his work through the prism of my fondness for him. I might go back and watch his final episode. His daughter is in it too and now I know that I can’t not see his face in hers. It added an extra layer of pleasure, buoyed up further by the fact that Metatron is played by one of the founders of The Factory, Al, who I met last millennium at our Guildhall first round audition.
It’s a lovely way to tell a complicated story. The costumes are great, it looks as good as it can with a BBC budget, and they have employed some real depth of acting talent – it isn’t just a pile of vapid twits with followers. Way to go the BBC. I expect it is always gonna be a hard sell to the US market that story. It is too complicated about religion to pass muster with any group of people who are using a specific faith to justify bigotry. Casting a much loved story is always an absolute bugger, because if people can read they’ve already imagined what everyone looks like. I cried after Neverending Story. I switched off the BBC Lion Witch and Wardrobe and refused to acknowledge it existed, aged 8ish.
I recognised the bench at the end of Dark Materials immediately – it was around there in those Oxford botanical gardens on a freezing cold winter’s day that I split up with my first girlfriend Anna. “I bet that’s crowded these days at midsummer,” Lou remarks, and she’s right. There’s probably a queue these days. People probably bring their cats.
I had a quiet day. Sent my bank details to the cops so if the geezer who broke into my car in Brighton ages ago pays his fine I’ll get a little bit of compensation. I would prefer it if they had found the guy in Camden so smashed my window in broad daylight over an easily measured half hour period and nicked my accordion. I’m still trying to replace it. I’m gonna need one like it very soon and can’t find one shy of £350… Fingers crossed.
AlBarclay 