Shadowlands

by William Nicholson

directed by Peter Drew

Shadowlands is a beautiful and touching play which, in demonstrating the rejuvenating power of love, will resonate with everyone. 

It's the poignant, humorous, unsentimental and ultimately optimistic story of the relationship between bachelor, academic and popular author, C.S. Lewis and divorced American poet, Joy Gresham, née Davidman. Set in the male enclave of academic Oxford in the 1950s, their relationship starts as an exchange of literary correspondence. 

When Joy arrives in Oxford, her intellectual assertiveness delights and refreshes Lewis but appalls his condescending fellow academics who are further shocked when Lewis goes through a marriage of convenience with her for immigration purposes. From tentative, timid beginnings their friendship develops unexpectedly into a deep and abiding love, brutally heightened by Joy's terminal illness which forces Lewis to reconsider his beliefs.