Magically dark world

Ambitious, long-awaited and very, very long, the National Theatre's epic adaptation of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials has finally opened. The weight of expectation lay heavy on the production. The two plays are based on books which have become best-sellers and the staging is so complex that the production has been delayed for two weeks due to technical difficulties.

Young fans of Pullman's books, which despite being condemned for being anti-Christian are second in popularity only to Harry Potter, will no doubt rush to see the six-hour marathon - adapted by Nicholas Wright and starring Timothy Dalton and Patricia Hodge, with Anna Maxwell Martin and Dominic Cooper as the central performers - to see how the National has coped with transforming a work which involves parallel universes featuring flying witches, talking bears and midgets astride dragonflies onto the stage.

The Evening Standard's theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh, who gives his verdict in the review link below, says it is an astonishing epic brought to an "elating finale".

However, The Times's Benedict Nightingale said he was weary by the end, and had had his fill of "rushing witches, men waving bear masks, screeching harpies" and the like. He said it portrayed a travesty of Christianity, and that "eventually tension and excitement get lost in the pseudo-theological blather".

The Daily Mail's Michael Coveney said: "For all its extravagance and scope... this is a distinctly stop-go affair." But he praised Anna Maxwell Martin as Lyra, saying she was " wonderfully alive to her emotional inner self and convincingly, often thrillingly, poised on the cusp between adolescence and womanhood."

Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph described it as "an honourable failure". He said there were some striking moments and several superb performances, but "there were long stretches when I was bored."

The audience who sat through the first full performance - it is also possible to see the two plays over two days - were appreciative. Sarah Wells, 16, a student from Lewes, said: "The six-hour length was not off-putting, because the play held my attention throughout." Joseph Menand, aged 12, from New York, said: "I really liked it and it was really good."

Eric Lumbsden, 43, a stage manager from Forest Hill, said: "The technical aspects of this play and the acting were just brilliant."