When a book is adapted for the stage, the playwright has to take into account two sets of people in the audience – those who have read the novel and those who haven’t.

When you are adapting three books, however, there is a third element to take into consideration and that is somebody like myself who has read one of the books, but not the other two.

Nicholas Wright in his adaptation of the three Philip Pulman Novels - Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - has turned this trilogy into two three-hour plays.

I had read the Northern Lights novel three or four years ago but didn’t quite get round to reading either of the other two, and therefore was able to remember part of the first play, but knew nothing of what was to follow.

I certainly understood what was going on, though the story is extremely complicated and requires such concentration that my interest flagged towards the end of the first play.

There was a brief five-minute resume at the beginning of the second play, seen the following night, and it has much more action.

It therefore seemed much shorter than the first one had done, even though they are identical in length lasting three hours including the 20-minute interval.

I enjoyed greatly Amy McAllister’s portrayal of the heroine Lyra Belacqua, who totally convinced me that she was a tomboy 12-year-old from Bristol.

The company were first rate with many of the actors filling several roles. And I adored the puppets so brilliantly conceived by Nick Barnes and Mark Down, from the Blind Summit Puppet Making Company, and expertly handled by the actors.

One of the story’s many spiritual ideas is that every human has a daemon, an animal that represents their inner soul, and it was these, which were portrayed by the puppets - a squirrel for Lyra, a snow leopard for Lord Asriel, a monkey for Mrs Coulter etc.

There are majestic but menacing armoured polar bears, and flying witches who were wheeled across the stage on stepladders.

Lyra has all sorts of fantastical adventures, visiting other worlds parallel to our own. Touches of Doctor Who, with echoes of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter thrown in for good measure!

It was a strange experience, watching this production just a week after the Irish judiciary published its report into the abuse of children in Catholic institutions.

Pullman’s epic story is famously anti-cleric and its ambition is breathtaking. Pullman aims to reverse our traditional ideas of godly authority and to arraign religious institutions for their cruel attempts to destroy the rich sensual joy of life.

Lyra Belacqua, is a brave and brilliant innocent abroad in a strange post-Victorian world of church power; a young adventurer born to challenge existing authority across myriad parallel universes with the help of these strange armies of witches, daemons and warrior bears.

This was a highly ambitious production, extremely well staged, but if anything a little on the long side.

Rachel Kavanaugh’s direction was excellent and drew the audience into this strange adventure of Lyra from a parallel world and Will from our own reality.