From Paddington and the BFG to The Gruffalo’s Child, My Neighbour Totoro to The Tiger Who Came to Tea, there is no shortage of stage adaptations of children’s classics filling theatres at the moment.

This week it was announced that Dog Man, the half-canine crime fighter from Dav Pilkey’s bestselling graphic novels, will make his London theatre debut at the Southbank Centre next summer.

Pilkey said the musical – adapted by Kevin Del Aguila and previously a sellout off Broadway – “surpassed my highest expectations” and left the audience, “especially me, in complete awe”. But how do writers set about reanimating cherished characters in an entirely new medium?

Del Aguila said: “When I was commissioned to adapt Dog Man my son was in fourth grade and extremely well versed in the books, so

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