La Belle Sauvage, the first volume in the Book of Dust trilogy – Philip Pullman’s prequel to the His Dark Materials series – begins with plucky 11-year-old Malcolm Polstead learning of the existence of six-month-old Lyra Belacqua, whose future as a thorn in the side of the church’s oppressive ruling body, the Magisterium, is foretold. The product of an affair between Mrs Coulter and Lord Asriel, Lyra has been left in the care of the nuns at an Oxford priory where Malcolm sporadically helps out with the cooking. When a flood overtakes the Thames Valley, Malcolm becomes Lyra’s protector, bundling her into his cherishedcanoe which he has named, La Belle Sauvage.
The actor Michael Sheen is our narrator, delivering a perfectly paced, richly textured performance as he takes on a dizzyingly large cast of characters. Along with our questing protagonist, Malcolm, and his teenage accomplice, Alice, there is also gentle Sister Fenella; the booming Lord Asriel; and the villainous Gerard Bonneville, former agent of the Magisterium. Sheen’s rendering of Bonneville’s daemon, a vicious three-legged hyena, is deliciously chilling.
