In the heart of London’s West End, the Aldwych Theatre is currently playing host to Shadowlands, a production that is as intellectually stimulating as it is emotionally devastating.
Opened in 1905, the Aldwych is a Grade II listed building designed by the legendary theatre architect W.G.R. Sprague. It stands as a beautiful example of Edwardian architecture, featuring an ornate, ivory-and-gold auditorium.
Shadowlands at Aldwych Theatre
The Play: Shadowlands
Based on a true story, Shadowlands is written by William Nicholson and was adapted from his own original BAFTA Award-winning TV Movie.
Hugh Bonneville stars as C.S. Lewis, the celebrated Oxford academic and author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Acclaimed actor, Maggie Siff, stars alongside as the spirited American poet Joy Davidman whose unexpected love transforms his orderly academic life.
The Plot
A lifelong bachelor and devout Christian, Lewis’s orderly world of “dreaming spires” and polite debate is upended when he begins a correspondence with Joy Davidman, a sharp-witted, American poet. What begins as a meeting of minds soon transforms into a deeply moving romance that challenges Lewis’s long-held theological views on suffering. As Joy is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Lewis is forced to move from the “shadowlands” of theory into the raw reality of love and grief.
The play’s title is a nod to a Platonic concept Lewis used to describe earthly life: a mere shadow of the “real” world that awaits in the afterlife.
The stage design is dominated by towering, book-filled shelves that rotate to transform the space from a stuffy Oxford common room to the intimate corners of Lewis’s home.
The scenery includes a few subtle “Narnia” Easter eggs, including a Victorian lamp-post
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