Shadowlands

Stephen Boxer gives an award-worthy performance as CS Lewis, who has brought so much magic into the lives of children yet lacks it in his stolid life. Oxford in the fifties is a boys’ club, mixing solely with other professors, who live a woman–free life of self-congratulatory intellectual sparring. The writing is a delight giving the excellent cast some beautifully phrased epigrams to enjoy. Amanda Ryan is brilliant as Joy Gresham, a brash American who brings spring to thaw out Lewis’s wintry Englishness. This wonderful play is multi-layered and appeals to the heart as well as the head.

Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, 7 March 2016

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