Learn about the history behind 'Shadowlands'

William Nicholson's acclaimed play tells the story of the unusual relationship of writers CS Lewis and Joy Davidman.

Summary

• Narnia author CS Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman began corresponding in 1950
• They entered a marriage of convenience when Davidman moved to England
• Both were sustained by their Christian faith after Davidman was diagnosed with cancer
• Rachel Kavanaugh's revival of William Nicholson's play stars Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Siff

CS Lewis is forever known as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, which remain evergreen with their rollicking adventures and unforgettable characters including Mr Tumnus, Reepicheep, Aslan, and many more. His day job, however, was as an Oxford don, and his Christian faith permeated his work.

Lewis was a confirmed bachelor when he struck up a friendship with Joy Davidman, an outspoken American poet, communist, and Christian convert in the 1950s. The pair married so that Davidman could stay in Britain, but the marriage of convenience blossomed into something far more significant. This unusual love story forms the basis of William Nicholson’s celebrated play Shadowlands, which has been revived in the West End starring Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Siff.

The play’s title refers to a concept coined by the essayist Charles Lamb in the 1820s as “an abode of ghosts and spirits”, though it has much more ancient origins in Plato’s "Allegory of the Cave". Lewis used it to contrast the earthly and heavenly realms.

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Who was CS Lewis?

As well as being the creator of Narnia, Clive Staples Lewis (known to his friends as Jack) was a literary scholar, theologian, broadcaster and author of over 30 books. He was born in Belfast in 1898 and was educated in England. After serving in World War I, he returned to Oxford University to complete his degree and was appointed a fellow and tutor in English Literature in 1925, where he served for 29 years. In the play, Lewis is represented as an archetypal English bachelor don.

Lewis was raised in the Church of Ireland but became an atheist in his youth. He converted to Anglicanism at the age of 32, in part due to the influence of JRR Tolkien and other members of the Oxford literary group The Inklings. His faith had a profound effect on his work.

Between 1949 to 1956, Lewis published his Chronicles of Narnia series, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. These books made Christian allegory accessible for young readers, and combined the religious messaging with mythology, fantasy, and adventure. They quickly became enormously popular. His other novels included the science fiction The Space Trilogy, the satirical The Screwtape Letters, and Till We Have Faces, a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche.

The other key relationship depicted in Shadowlands is Lewis’s bond with his brother Warren ("Warnie"), who served as an army officer before becoming his sibling's secretary. Selections from Warren’s diary were published in 1982 under the title Brothers and Friends.

Who was Joy Davidman?

Born to a secular middle-class Jewish family in New York City in 1915, Joy Davidman studied English at Columbia University and worked as a teacher. She joined the American Communist Party in 1938, having witnessed the failings of capitalism during the Great Depression. In the same year, she won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition for her collection Letter to a Comrade. She also worked as a film and book critic and poetry editor for the Marxist journal The New Masses and spent six months in Hollywood writing film scripts for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (none of which were used).

Davidman married fellow writer and communist William Lindsay Gresham in 1942 and they had two sons, David and Douglas (in the play, she has one child). However, the marriage deteriorated due to Gresham’s alcoholism and infidelity and they began to look to religion for solutions. They both read the books of C.S. Lewis and became Christians in 1948. Davidman was known for her outgoing, uninhibited personality, in marked contrast with Lewis’s introversion (a classic case of opposites attract!).

What was the nature of Lewis and Davidman’s relationship?

Davidman began corresponding with Lewis in 1950. They first met in person when Davidman travelled to England in 1952 and quickly became close friends, though Davidman’s romantic feelings for Lewis were one-sided.

Her husband requested a divorce in 1953, and Davidman shortly afterwards returned to England with her sons. Lewis helped her to find a house close to his home and supported her sons’ education. When her visa was due to expire in 1956, they entered a civil marriage of convenience, after which they continued to live separately. Later that year, Davidman was diagnosed with incurable cancer, and Lewis came to the realisation that he had in fact fallen in love with her.

The couple wished to obtain a Christian marriage, which was tricky due to Davidman’s status as a divorcee, but a clergyman friend of Lewis agreed to conduct the ceremony at Davidman’s hospital bedside in 1957. After enjoying a period of remission and fulfilling her dream of visiting Greece, Davidman died in July 1960 at the age of 45. Lewis adopted her sons and The Horse and His Boy was dedicated to them.

Lewis’s book A Grief Observed was published the following year under the pseudonym NW Clerk, based on his journals in which he adjusted to life without his wife and explored his anger towards God. He ultimately concluded that grief is the price to pay having given and received the gift of true love. Lewis himself died in 1963 aged 64.

Shadowlands on screen and stage

William Nicholson (who went on to write the screenplays for Gladiator and Les Misérables) penned a fictionalised imagining of Lewis and Davidman’s relationship in the form of a BBC television play in 1985 starring Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom. The production won BAFTA Awards for Best Play and Best Actress.

Nicholson then adapted his screenplay as a stage play, which premiered at Theatre Royal Plymouth in 1989 before transferring to the West End’s Queen’s Theatre (now the Sondheim Theatre), where it played for almost a year and won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best New Play. Nigel Hawthorne and Jane Lapotaire originated the roles of Lewis and Davidman. Hawthorne reprised the role on Broadway in 1991, opposite Jane Alexander, where he won the Tony for Best Actor and Nicholson was nominated for Best Play.

Following Shadowlands’ success as a stage play, it was adapted into the acclaimed 1993 feature film starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, directed by Richard Attenborough, with a screenplay again penned by Nicholson. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published, and it won a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film.

Shadowlands was revived in the West End with Charles Dance and Janie Dee in 2007. The play now returns to the West End at the Aldwych Theatre, led by Downton Abbey and Paddington star Hugh Bonneville as Lewis, reprising the role that he first played in Rachel Kavanaugh’s 2019 production at Chichester Festival Theatre. He stars opposite Maggie Siff (Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy) as the vivacious Davidman.

Shadowlands is sure to be one of the most moving shows of the season, bringing together the intellect and the emotions in the form of a beautifully tender and understated love story led by two formidable actors.

Book Shadowlands tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Photo credit: Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Siff. (Photo by Jay Brooks)