Nicholas Hytner will direct an adaptation of the His Dark Materials prequel at the Bridge theatre

More than a decade after Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy first dazzled theatre audiences, his prequel novel La Belle Sauvage is set to be adapted for the stage at London’s Bridge theatre in autumn 2020.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Bridge theatre confirmed that plans were under way to adapt Pullman’s 2017 novel for the stage. Bridge artistic director Nicholas Hytner will direct the show, which will be written by Bryony Lavery.

La Belle Sauvage sees Pullman’s beloved heroine Lyra Belacqua, whose adventures with her daemon Pantalaimon made up the His Dark Materials trilogy, appear as a baby. Explaining how she came to be in Jordan College in his fantasy alternate Oxford, the novel sees baby Lyra saved from her enemies, and a catastrophic flood, by Malcolm, a resourceful boy who performs odd jobs for the church sheltering her.

Pullman has called The Book of Dust trilogy not a prequel nor sequel but an “equel”. While La Belle Sauvage is a prequel, the second volume The Secret Commonwealth – to be published in October – will follow Lyra as an adult, roughly 10 years after His Dark Materials ended.

The first trilogy was adapted into a two-part production by playwright Nicholas Wright. The original production, which premiered at the National Theatre in London in 2003, was also directed by Hytner and starred Timothy Dalton, Patricia Hodge, Ben Whishaw and Dominic Cooper.

A global bestseller since the first volume, Northern Lights, was published in 1995, Pullman’s series has sold more than 17.5m copies and been translated into 40 languages.