Shadowlands
I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever heard proper walk-on applause in this country before. But the Shadowlands audience erupted as soon as star Hugh Bonneville walked out on stage. Either our stiff upper lipped standards are slipping, there were a load of Americans in, or Bonneville fans are simply very, very thirsty people.
Of course I choose to believe the latter, and it’s emblematic of Bonneville’s peculiarly English middle aged charm that the role that’s getting his base so hot under the collar is that of the extremely low thirst CS Lewis.
A revival of Wiliam Nicholson’s 1989 play, Shadowlands stars Bonneville as the devoutly Christian Chronicles of Narnia author, and traces his real life romance with the younger American poet Joy Davidman. And it’s largely delightful, not an odd couple meet cute, but a story about a genuine, real connection between two somewhat lost souls. He is a man in his late fifties who lives a life of scholarly bachelorhood, in rooms he shares with his doddery older brother Major WH Lewis (Jeff Rawle). But Lewis – or ‘Jack’ to most people, though his real name was Clive – is also kind and amusing. He’s hardly a monk, and indeed we learn that his inability – or lack of desire – to form attachments with women can in part be traced to trauma at the early death of his mother.
Maggie Siff’s Davodman is self-possessed and fiercely intelligent. She is brave but vulnerable, travelling the world with her sweet young son Douglas, her promising start as a...