Alan Franks from
the Times recently spoke to Philip Pullman at his home outside Oxford upon the re-opening of Nicholas Wright’s stage adaptation of
His Dark Materials at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. “For a moment it looks as if you might have stumbled on the Grumpiest Old Man in England,” but Pullman speaks passionately about his recent success, his father, and his love of theatre – and likewise the stage production of his most famous books, including performances in community theatres and school halls – among other things. Still, “His anger towards God remains undimmed,” (Franks is clearly amused at the notion of Pullman cursing) though the author admits that the Catholic Church is a “soft target,” and reconciles, “We are very fortunate to live in a time and place where you don’t get dismembered for having the wrong political convictions, and we should be thoroughly grateful for it every day of our lives.”
Pullman is keeping silent with regards to progress made on the eagerly awaited Book of Dust, but indicates a new passion in his life: electric guitar; more precisely the Fender he got last year. You can read the whole interview here. Thanks to Skye for the tip.
His Dark Materials, the play, premiered in Birmingham under the direction of Rachel Kavanaugh last Friday and will be on stage until Saturday, 18 April 2009. The adaptation was first staged at the National Theatre in London under the direction of Nicholas Hytner in December of 2003. For more information about the current Birmingham production, visit the official site of the Repertory Theatre. Tickets cost between £10 and £32.50, and accessible performances for audience-members with hearing or visual impairments are available on certain dates at no extra cost.
Philip Pullman will be at the Oxford Playhouse on April 24th for a discussion of His Dark Materials as part of the Playhouse’s 70th anniversary celebrations. He will talk about “the genesis of an alternate Oxford” and “his impressions of the adaptation of his epic trilogy, in the week before it takes to the Playhouse stage”. He will also talk about the differences between stage and screen, comparing the play with the film of The Golden Compass. Tickets can be purchased for £11(£9) through the
Oxford Playhouse website.
With the approaching release of
Once Upon a Time in the North, Philip Pullman talks to Rosa Silverman of
The Times newspaper. The interview topics include the effects of corporate forces on our lives and the environment, his hopes and reservations regarding the movies, and the difficulties of writing stories that impress both the critics the public.
“A lot of things about [The Golden Compass movie] were good. Nothing’s perfect. Nothing can bring out all that’s in the book. There are always compromises.”
Pullman also describes his optimism that the sequels will be made and concedes that he wants to appeal to a wide audience partly because “the more readers you get, the more money you get.” It’s a candid comment, befitting a man who has built up a reputation for speaking his mind on controversial ideas. Read the whole article
here.
Philip Pullman speaks to free lance journalist A.S.H. Smyth in this Tuesday’s
Spectator about his upcoming book Once Upon a Time in the North and especially Lee Scoresby. Moving beyond God and towards British politics, globalisation, and the environment, Pullman arrives at a story where Lee and Iorek Byrnison, “finding that their interests mutually coincide with those of a Dutch merchant whose cargo has been illegally impounded, pool their strengths, automatically and almost wordlessly, in defence of the little man,” upon inspiration from The Magnificent Seven. Fans will also discover the origins of Lee’s balloon and Winchester rifle.
Read more
Once Upon a Time in the North comes out April 3rd.
Chris Bond of the
Yorkshire Post newspaper spoke to Philip Pullman recently, when Pullman visited Leeds University on World Book Day to give a lecture entitled
Poco a Poco, concerning children’s literature. Bond’s article features discussion with Pullman over a number of issues, and while there is little revealed that is particularly new, it is certainly well worth a read. Read the article
here.
Susannah Herbert from the
Sunday Times spoke to Philip Pullman recently to discuss his upcoming release,
Once Upon a Time in the North and reveals a number of concerns that are informing not only the author’s writing but also his lifestyle and ideas on the state of things. Drawing upon his childhood imagination of a heroic father and his favourite Western,
The Magnificent Seven, he says about this story dedicated to the much loved Texan cowboy Lee Scoresby, “It wasn’t until I was some way into it that I realised: it’s about honour… Of course.”
More pressing, however, is the environmental message behind the story: ‘While the evil forces of the trilogy were all linked to an oppressive theocracy, their equivalents in Once Upon a Time in the North are allied to an oil corporation that is trying to buy up politicians and subvert the rule of law.’ Discussing the worldwide obsession with the market, Pullman compares the violence of imperialism in Roman Antiquity to the globally destructive damage done today and recalls a time just before his birth when consumption was controlled by wartime rations. “Humanity needs to evolve morally if it is to survive. We have to change and it will be very uncomfortable. But if we don’t, the alternative will be worse.”
Read more.
Philip Pullman’s
official website has been updated since the release of the film adaptation of The Golden Compass, with the message: “I shall have more to say about it in due course, but for the moment there are two interviews I did recently in which I think I’ve managed to say a few things clearly.” He links to Peter Chattaway’s
FilmChat blog with whom he conducted a lengthy interview by e-mail, and a conversation with editor-in-chief James Mustich for the
Barnes & Noble Review on the art of storytelling. The e-mail interview was conducted earlier for an article in Christianity Today but wass posted by the original interviewer in its entirety on his personal blog. The Barnes & Noble interview was conducted 1st November, likely during Pullman’s North American tour.
BBC Oxford’s Martin Eastaugh has shared with us his extended interview with Philip Pullman, conducted in the senior common room of Exeter College, our world’s equivalent to Jordan College’s Retiring Room. “The interview contains some rather nice stuff about the story behind the books, the boycott of the film and some insights into the Oxford locations in the story. There’s also a nice anecdote about when he met JRR Tolkein.” Pullman also shares some possible content for the Book of Dust.
Eastaugh also catches up with Catholic League president Bill Donahue who describes Pullman as a “master storyteller”.
Click here to access both interviews. He also links to his exploration of Oxford-His Dark Materials connections and some response from the first to see the movie in Oxford.
Canadian website Movies Online feature a
recent interview with The Golden Compass director Chris Weitz from the movie’s Los Angeles press day. It’s one of the more in depth interviews done with Weitz recently. Items discussed are the much talked-about potential
director’s cut which we may see on the DVD release.
Weitz says he believes there is potential for a revised 2 hours 30 minutes running time, even without adding on the missing ending. The director also discusses the importance of star names being cast for minor roles, the sequels and his future career. It’s a really interesting piece – you can read the interview in full
here.
As we reported some weeks ago, Philip Pullman will appear at the Phoenix Cinema in Oxford tomorrow for a one hour discussion about the movie. This is sold out. However, you can still get hold of tickets to see him speaking in Oxford via satellite in a number of other Picturehouse cinemas around the country. You can see Pullman speaking in the following towns and cities around the UK:
London, Aberdeen, Bath, Brighton, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Exeter, Henley-on-Thames, Liverpool, Norwich, Southampton, Stratford-upon-Avon and York.
The conversation begins at 4.40pm and tickets cost around 7 GBP. Read here for further details.