In July 2019, it was announced that Nicholas Hytner, who previously directed the first run of His Dark Materials stageplay at the National Theater in London, would direct a brand new stageplay adaptation of Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage. The play is adapted by Bryony Lavery and should have premiered at the Bridge Theater in London later from the summer of 2020. However, due to the pandemics which hit the world in 2020 and led - notably - to the closure of theaters, the play ran from December 2, 2021 to February 26, 2022.


     When first details were disclosed, on November 12, 2020, the stageplay was presented as follow:
     "Philip Pullman sets The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage twelve years before his epic His Dark Materials trilogy.
Two young people and their daemons, with everything at stake, find themselves at the centre of a terrifying manhunt. In their care is a tiny child called Lyra Belacqua, and in that child lies the fate of the future. And as the waters rise around them, powerful adversaries conspire for mastery of Dust: salvation to some, the source of infinite corruption to others.
Seventeen years after his ground breaking production of His Dark Materials at the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner returns to Pullman’s parallel universe to direct a gripping adaptation by Bryony Lavery."

The text of the stageplay is available from the publisher Nick Hern Books.