THE first part of the forthcoming TV adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy has now finished filming and episodes could be screened next year.

Cardiff-based production company Bad Wolf announced earlier this year it was adapting the Cumnor-based writer’s three novels for an eight-part series for the BBC.

The series is expected to air in 2019, with Logan star Dafne Keen cast as Lyra Belacqua, and James McAvoy chosen for the role of polar explorer Lord Asriel.

In July, security was tight around Holywell Street in Oxford where a long line of film trucks parked up, and there were restrictions in New College Lane, closed to the Bridge of Sighs.

Now series one of the keenly anticipated series, which will focus on the adventures of Lyra Belacqua in Northern Lights, has been completed.

A tweet showed actress Dafne Keen confirming the news, as she held up a clapperboard saying ‘That’s a wrap!’

A message also quoted the last line of Northern Lights, the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy: “So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked towards the sun, and walked into the sky.”

Series one of His Dark Materials is set to cover the events of Northern Lights over the course of eight episodes.

Future series adapting The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass – the second and third books in the trilogy – are expected to go into production in 2019.

The script is being written by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playwright Jack Thorne, with an all-star cast including James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The first series is expected to be shown late in 2019, although no transmission date has yet been confirmed by BBC1. In the United States His Dark Materials will be shown on the cable channel HBO.

Mr Pullman said he was ‘delighted’ after filming began in July this year, adding: “I’m looking forward immensely to seeing how it looks.”

He also thanked production company Bad Wolf for its work in adapting the trilogy and assembling ‘a wonderful cast’.

BBC director-general Tony Hall has confirmed that at least one more series is set to be made, despite the high cost of producing each episode.

The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper is leading the project and will direct the first two episodes. The Bad Wolf team has already celebrated success with the Sky One adaptation of Deborah Harkness’s Oxford-based novel A Discovery of Witches.