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Shadowlands

Published Tuesday 9 October 2007 at 18:40 by John Thaxter

If the elegant Charles Dance seemed unlikely casting as the shambling donnish author CS Lewis, his performance in crumpled corduroys is a masterpiece of characterisation.

Bowed shoulders, half-swallowed harrumphs to fill the gap between thought and unspoken word, plus semaphoring eyebrows - nothing overstated - all contribute to a touching portrayal of a man first a diffident friend, then a reluctant lover out of touch with his own emotions, and finally a desolate widower.

William Nicholson’s heart-warming play, first staged in 1990 following the television version, is a true story of the relationship between Lewis and a feisty American divorcee, Joy Davidman, charting their courtship and a brief but blissful marriage, ending with her untimely death.

Nicholson keeps the pain at bay with deft sideswipes at the misogyny of Magdalen table-talk in the Oxford of the fifties, bitchily led by John Standing. Joy, played by Janie Dee with the right air of abrasive confidence and spot-on New York accent - but not the sensuousness, gives as good as she gets, winning the awed admiration of Lewis’ colleagues if not their affection. And there is a perfectly judged portrait by Richard Durden of his uptight brother Warnie, lacking only the blue-haze smokescreen of pipe tobacco to complete the effect.

The play has its mawkish moments. Joy’s young son steps through the giant wardrobe of Matthew Wright’s set, dominated by towering bookstacks, into a glittering Narnia to retrieve Aslan’s apple of health to bring to his mother’s hospital bed. And while wiping away a tear or two of my own, the play loses its way in its search for closure with the sight of an Oxford professor blubbing inconsolably, arms wrapped around the shoulders of his orphaned stepson.

But Dance ‘surprised by Joy’ gives an unmissable performance that should keep the Wyndham’s box office busy.

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