With the second season of the BBC’s acclaimed adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novels due to hit screens next month, Greg D Smith attended an online preview event put on by the BBC to hear from cast and creatives about what we can expect in the continuing onscreen adventures of Lyra Silvertongue.

More. That was the word which Jane Tranter, co-founder of Bad Wolf (the production company responsible for the show) started out with when asked directly what we could expect from this new season. As she explained it, each book in the trilogy grows in depth and complexity as the series progresses, and the show will absolutely follow that dynamic, introducing new characters, new challenges for existing characters and whole new factions and worlds for viewers to explore.

But does that mean that there will be more radical departures from the books like Will’s appearance in series 1? Writer Jack Thorne says not, though with a certain twinkle in his eye as he picks his precarious way around revealing anything which, might spoil surprises for viewers. He explained that the writers room (which he found valuable in challenging him on certain ideas) have their own ‘encyclopaedia’ of the entire world of HDM, and they often pull on little parts of that here and there to slot them where they can. The objective, as he explained answering a question about creative freedom on the show, is never to fundamentally alter what Pullman has created, but rather how best to present that creation using the language of television.

As to tone, Thorne mentioned that where season 1 had the feel of ‘a romp’ in places, season 2 features far more introspection for its characters. Lyra is no longer the open, trusting character she was, having been so nakedly betrayed by her father at the end of the previous season. Will, a young man who has been given little reason by life to trust anyone, is also now somewhat out of his depth. If these two are to survive they must learn to trust one another, at least as far as they are able.

As far as the cast go, it felt like the members we had all had great fun with this new season. Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson both marvelled at the set design for Cittagaze, which had been built in ‘a car park’ but resembled for all the world a real town, complete with shops, and vast enough that Keen claimed to have literally got lost in its streets. The two leads related how they had bonded over omelettes on set, which left everything smelling of eggs and Keen at least declaring she’s never eating another omelette as long as she lives. The two had actually met in Madrid, rather than on set, and seem to have formed a close bond working together on the show. As Keen lives in Madrid, she said she’s seldom recognised, though people often think she ‘looks like the girl from His Dark Materials’ though she always denies it. Amir said he is sometimes recognised on his way to school, by mums including one who told him she’d actually worked on translating the novels for Pullman.

Ariyon Bakare said that he had been recognised himself by a small boy at an airport, who had followed him insisting to his parents that it was Lord Boreal himself in the flesh! Of his character, Bakare says that he is somewhat of a snake (appropriately enough!) and uses his charm (and when that fails his ruthlessness) to make sure he always gets his own way, although as the series progresses he may find himself terrified by exactly what that entails – be careful what you wish for, indeed.

New cast member Simone Kirby, playing Dr Mary Malone, seems to have found her experience positive, describing the returning cast members as ‘one big family’, even though as she relayed it, she didn’t get to spend too many scenes with many of them. Her character, a complex scientist from ‘our world’ who finds her spirituality and her scientific understanding at odds with one another, is one that Kirby feels she already ‘gets’ and did from when she read the novels herself years ago. Her search for ‘Dark Matter’ happens to coincide with Lyra’s own search for Dust (in the world of HDM the same things) and there’s an odd dynamic to see played out of Malone struggling to grasp certain elements of the stuff that Lyra finds really quite straightforward, emphasising the differences between their respective worlds. Kirby said that often she would go to watch the other actors in their own scenes, making a nice change from her own quite dark and forbidding set representing her laboratory and giant computer.

And speaking of those worlds, how much did the whole crew feel that the stories being told in HDM reflected the current strange state in which the real world finds itself? Thorne was quite forthright, pointing out that in the worlds of the show, you’re seeing the adults who run the world massively letting down the children of that world, much like we arguably see right now, and reminding me of similar comments I heard from writer Guy Burt on the set of Alex Rider back in 2019. Tranter said that the difference of the world from which Lyra hails is the Magisterium, which acts to instinctively supress any new discovery, like the portal created by Asriel at the end of the last season. That instinct has held the world back as knowledge is so jealously guarded, leaving it as a world that’s never really experienced the milestones ours has in progress, and roughly analogous to our mid 20th century at best.

As to what might most shock and surprise the audience about this new series, nobody would be drawn on details for fear of spoilers. That said, Tranter did go on to detail what it was specifically that people had tended to be talking about on twitter after each episode of season 1, and it was the smaller things – not massive events or scenes but quieter moments, little interactions or even looks between characters –and the whole crew agreed that this is a trend they expect to continue solidly into this new season.

And finally – what was it like filming such a massive series in the challenging environment provided by 2020 and Covid-19? As it turns out, most of the actual filming had been done in 2019, largely simultaneously with the extensive post-production needed for the first season given the FX-heavy nature of the thing. There is, apparently an entirely missing episode that was written by Thorne, which had to be cut off filming in March of this year, and it sounds like getting around that absence with clever writing and editing of what they did have has been quite the challenge.

So, new worlds, new factions and a whole new chapter in Lyra’s adventures. Sounds like it’s going to be a good winter’s viewing for fans of Pullman’s worlds, and when asked about potentially adapting the writer’s new trilogy for the screen, Thorne and Tranter both seemed positive and excited. Sounds like we could be watching these worlds on the small screen for some time to come.