Review: SHADOWLANDS, Starring Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Siff

In his book, A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis wrote, "The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal". It's that deal that William Nicholson's poignant play explores in the true story of Lewis's late-in-life love, marriage and loss. Thoughtful, tender and touching, Shadowlands examines joy and grief as a profoundly human experience.

It has taken since 2019 for Rachel Kavanaugh’s version of the play to come to the West End after a successful run at Chichester. Hugh Bonneville returns from that run as C.S.Lewis, established in his comfortable life in Oxford, surrounded by academia and male friends. He is transformed by the arrival of American Mrs Joy Davidman (Maggie Siff), first through her letters and then in person. Joy begins as an interesting and intriguing companion, suddenly shifting into the love of his life when she is diagnosed with cancer and Lewis realises he will lose her.

Bonneville is amiable, believable and gently formal as Lewis. His presence feels like a comfortable pair of shoes; familiar and unchallenging, but as the character submits to the waves of grief after Joy dies, Bonneville is touchingly bereft.

Siff is great as Joy, arriving in a wave of energy that is a huge contrast to the staid and rather grey world of Oxford academia. She is woman who is knocked by her American husband's infidelity, then tries to rebuild her life and confidence as a divorcee in a new country. Siff never slips into the caricature of a loud and overly positive American and her sharp-tongued ripostes to the mysogynist views of Lewis's academic circle are perfectly delivered.

The ensemble support is good, smoothly moving props on and off the stage in well-choreographed and almost dance-like sequences. There are also lovely turns by Jeff Rawle as Lewis's genial brother Warnie and Timothy Watson as spiky academic Christopher Riley.

Lewis was a devout Christian and, like so many men of his time, emotionally repressed. Nicholson's script skips over many of agonies that Lewis must have felt in marrying a divorced woman, but deftly depicts how his carapace of formality is cracked by this refreshingly direct woman. There are no sexual fireworks here, no unbridled chemistry, but nor is there meant to be. This is a play about the joy of falling in love unexpectedly and its subsequent, inevitable loss.

Designer Peter McKintosh's staging is simplistic, framed with towering, dusty bookshelves. With a thoughtful allusion to Narnia, there is also an enchanting reveal of what may lie beyond those shelves.

Kavanaugh's direction feels a little pedestrian overall, despite much use of the revolve, but this is a slow-burner of a production. Plodding in parts, but ultimately devastating.

Shadowlands is at Aldwych Theatre until 9 May

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