HisDarkMaterials.org

The Guardian just posted this article:

Why waste time and money on pantos, strippers or plays without words? Because they offer some of this Christmas's greatest treats. Kicking off our six-page special, Mark Ravenhill salutes Cinders and co

A few years ago, I was in Cork for Christmas and took a friend to see the local pantomime. It was probably Jack and the Beanstalk. I can't remember and - this being panto - it didn't matter. As the lights went down, I found myself chuckling with delight. "Right: good fairy in over there; bad fairy in over there. Front cloth out, chorus of villagers - and on with the dame." My friend was surprised: everything unfolded as I said it would. By the time I said, "Nearly time for the interval: we're reaching the transformation scene", he was starting to suspect I had eerie powers of prediction.

During the interval, my friend confessed that he was feeling a little out of his depth because he had never seen a panto before. I was amazed, appalled and saddened. What a miserable experience life would be without panto. Of course, you can enjoy it as a novice. But that night, I realised that panto - like kabuki or baroque opera - has its own rituals and rules. And unless you are inside the rules, unless they are in your blood from childhood, you will probably never really, really love panto as I do, and have done for over 30 years.

My earliest memory of panto is of watching two women - one in a dress, one in a tutu and tights - declaring their undying love for each other. "Oh Dick," the woman in the dress said. "I love you so much. I'm on the top of the world." And then they sang a song (which, I later realised, was by the Carpenters). My giddy four-year-old heart rushed at the romantic, totally ludicrous thrill of it all. From that moment on, Christmas to me meant panto. Often I saw two a year: a professional panto with people from the telly (I remember Ronnie Corbett and Dora Bryan, in particular), and - marginally better - a local panto performed by amateurs.

When I was about 10, I found a book called Potted Pantos - a particular delight. Here, I learned that there are only a few true panto plots: Snow White, Cinderella, Dick Whittington and His Cat, Jack and the Beanstalk, Babes in the Wood and Robinson Crusoe (not seen much recently). It's a smaller repertoire than even the most careful opera house presents. Alongside the plots, the book explained how and where you could insert various panto routines: the haunted house (inherited from Roman comedy), the slosh scene (as it sounds), the washing/mangle routine. With a little careful planning, I learned that these could be worked into almost any panto. There was also guidance on placing jokes, whether wincingly old puns or topical cracks; on where to include a song-sheet and other bits of audience participation; and on how to build to the transformation scene at the end of act one and the walk-down at the end of act two (when all the characters come on in spectacular clothes for their final appearance).

I'm sometimes asked if I trained or studied to be a playwright. I say no - but looking back now, I realise that Potted Pantos was my early training. While the book didn't encourage originality, it certainly made writing a play seem like a workmanlike activity, a skill that combined the use of characters, language, spectacle and songs. What better way for a playwright to learn their craft?

I think we panto lovers have a subversive vision of the world. As the panto opens, the battle lines between good and evil are drawn. On comes the good fairy - but how silly and ineffectual she is. How much more alive is the bad fairy: her costume more attractive, her make-up fantastic, her couplets the more muscular. Evil is sexy. Good - asexual, prissy, sweetly rhyming - doesn't stand a chance. It's only when a whole army of the polymorphous and polysexual are recruited that good can win the day. The message of panto is clear: we need hapless fathers, fat men in dresses and women in tunics in love with other women if the world is to be set to rights. Evil may be sexy, but it won't be defeated by denying our sexuality. Only when we embrace our own polysexuality can we win through. As every boy or girl knows, the cross-dressed shall inherit the earth.

You would be hard pressed to find anything in children's literature or entertainment that is anywhere near as radical as panto. Certainly not the

Tony Blair says he wants some "improving literature" for Christmas. But what would make a good literary gift for the Prime Minister? The Magazine scans the current bestsellers list for a few ideas. `

Mr Blair is on record as being a PG Wodehouse fan and he is also reputed to pack a copy of the Koran and the Bible when going on foreign trips.

He is also known to enjoy a ripping yarn. Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe was a favourite of his as a lad, apparently, and he says he has re-read the Lord of The Rings books with his children.

Inspired choice?

But with David Blunkett and Gordon Brown already down as the Cabinet's official Harry Potter fans, Mr Blair might want to venture into more grown-up - but no less gripping - waters with Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, set in Oxford, where the PM attended university.

Mr Blair also loves his rock music, so Nick Hornby's 31 Songs , in which the About a Boy author discusses, erm, his favourite 31 songs, might prove an inspired choice.

But Hornby's tastes - which run to Nelly Furtado and Aussie experimentalists The Avalanches - may be a little too exotic for the guitar-strumming PM, who never tires of showing off his hard rock credentials (recent favourites are the Foo Fighters and The Darkness).

A safer bet could be Sting's autobiography, Broken Music . The Geordie warbler's journey from angry young punk to inoffensive, adult orientated rocker may strike a chord with the PM, and they both share a love of Newcastle United football club (allegedly).

Big sellers

Similarly, Serious , John McEnroe's much-praised autobiography might be a good choice for the tennis-loving premier. He has certainly heard enough of McEnroe's catchphrase over the past 12 months.

TV spin-offs, such as What Not to Wear (memo to Mr Blair: do not buy for Cherie) are doing well in the bestseller list, as is Shane Richie's autobiography Rags to Richie (memo to Mr Blair: think of better title than this for your autobiography).

Another big seller, How Clean is Your House? looks more promising, but turns out to be another Trinny and Susannah-style snobfest, and nothing to do with the register of members' interests.

The biggest selling political book is Dude, Where's my Country? (No, not George W Bush's first words on stepping on to the tarmac at Heathrow the other week, but the current bible of the militant anti-war brigade).

War stories

Mr Blair is unlikely to be impressed by author Michael Moore's scabrous account of his friend Mr Bush's rise to power. He will find a more sympathetic portrait of the US president in Bush at War , by veteran Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. But according to most reviewers, the book reduces Downing Street's role in the proceedings to that of a footnote.

Robin Cook puts Downing Street firmly at the centre of events in his diary of the lead up to war, Point of Departure . But the former foreign secretary's version of history, described by one reviewer as "glancingly bitchy," is unlikely to do much for Mr Blair's blood pressure.

If he really wants a political tome to get his teeth into, Mr Blair could do worse than The Prudence of Mr Gordon Brown , William Keegan's study of the economic philosophy and psychological motivation of the PM's self-styled "best friend in politics". Mrs Blair may want to slip a copy into his stocking, in the interest of promoting neighbourly love and understanding.

Comedy choices

Or, if imagination and time run out, there is always the emergency stand-by comedy stocking filler.

Men apparently can't get enough of random, meaningless lists - so if Mr Blair fancies a break from compiling the New Year's Honours, he might enjoy Schott's Food and Drink Miscellany . Its mischievous - and virtually identical - twin Shite's Original Miscellany is also doing brisk business, as is The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Parenting .

But Mr Blair may find more use for the Oxford Dictionary of English , if an old CV unearthed by the press this week is anything to go by. The document was full of howlers, including a reference to Tony Glair, although the mistakes were blamed on "typing errors".

Crap Towns - a pictorial rundown of the 50 most miserable locations in the British Isles - is also doing well, and may provide a guilty snigger or two for Mr Blair.

Until he realises the main criteria for inclusion is the local crime rate and the quality of the schools.

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The following article comes from the Independent, and also mentions Philip Pullman:

John Le Carr

Le Carr

I found this little description of the His Dark Materials Stageplay in The Times:

National Theatre, London; Dec 4-Mar 20, 020 7452 3000; www.nationaltheatre.org.uk; A play for 12-year-olds upwards

The parallel worlds of Philip Pullman

http://www.mi6.co.uk had this interesting article about Timothy Dalton and the His Dark Materials stageplay:

Timothy Dalton is back in a tale that

The family Christmas show arrives with high expectations, not least from the legions of young (and adult) readers who take a proprietorial interest in how Pullman

Actor Samuel Barnett's big break has come under Nicholas Hytner at the National with the additional challenge of acting with a puppet.

This Christmas' hot ticket is tipped to be Nicholas Hytner's epic adaptation of His Dark Materials, children's author Philip Pullman's award-winning trilogy.

For young actor Samuel Barnett, the show will hopefully pave his way into the West End - despite having left LAMDA only two years ago.

"I just feel so lucky to be involved with His Dark Materials," says Samuel about the play, which opens for previews at the National Theatre on December 4. "I play Pantalaimon, the demon of Lyra, the lead character. I've been part of the production since it was in workshop last year and I was just so lucky. When I was at drama school, the National was a place I thought I'd never get to. Now, less than two years after leaving drama school, I'm here and working on something so exciting."

For those uninitiated in the trilogy - of which the third book became the first children's book to win Whitbread Book of the Year - it tells the story of two children, Will and Lyra, and their spiritual journey through three parallel universes. Lyra comes from a world similar to our own but where the soul is manifest in a demon attached to its owner by an invisible bond.

In the books, children's demons often change shapes from birds to cats to insects as their owner goes through a range of emotions. Something that may cause a few problems in a stage adaptation.

Explains Sam: "All the demons are puppets, so we've all had to learn to be puppeteers. This show is really, really pure theatre coupled with some illusions. The audience are going to have to suspend belief. You are not going to see any demons actually changing forms in front of you like you do in the book or the aurora being torn apart but there are some pretty good effects.

"I'm dressed in black from head to toe but the trick is to do everything you would do as an actor but express it through the puppet. I think that's why they are using us rather than professional puppeteers. The idea isn't to hide us but to get the audience to suspend belief and only see the demon. You are really removing the actor from the equation."

But will today's audiences, with their love for reality television and ever more realistic cinema, really be able to become drawn into such a fantastical production?

"I think so," says Sam. "We are not hiding the fact that we are controlling the puppets so audiences will hopefully buy into it. At the end of the day, people who come along and watch this want to see theatre. It is a really emotional play. People cannot help but be drawn into it and get taken up with the story. I do, just watching rehearsals."

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WhatsonStage.com is giving away 10 copies of "Nicholas Wright