On this Valentine’s weekend, I have concocted a failsafe test for a potential love interest: does this person snuffle quiet tears at the end of Shadowlands? Are they profoundly moved by the line ‘The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal’? If the answers are ‘no’, run a mile, as this person lacks any evidence of a beating heart.
William Nicholson’s gently magnificent 1989 drama about the emotional unlocking of a certain type of repressed Englishness returns in style to the West End, with Hugh Bonneville in the central role of writer C.S.Lewis, who has his late middle-aged life upended by lively, straight-talking American poet Joy Davidman (Maggie Siff). With his roles as Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey and Mr Brown in the Paddington films, Bonneville has cornered the market in an elegant brand of reserved English decency and Lewis is a fine addition to the collection.
Designer Peter McKintosh’s set of towering book-lined shelves places us confidently in the rarefied world of Oxford academia where Lewis operates. It’s an arena that is very male and very literate in every sense except emotionally and Lewis and his brother Warnie (Jeff Rawle, excellent) live a contented life as benign, bumbling bachelors in a house whose central heating has been broken for a decade. Yet when Lewis’s transatlantic correspondence with Davidman results in a face-to-face meeting, tectonic plates of feeling begin a very gradual shift.
The key to getting the balance of Shadowlands just right is that Lewis must not underplay the transformation going on in his inner life, nor Davidman overplay her breath-of-fresh-air schtick.
When Rachel Kavanaugh’s production premiered at Chichester in 2019, I commented that Bonneville needed to dig deeper to reach the eviscerating levels of emotion that Anthony Hopkins brought to the part in the acclaimed 1993 film. He does that here, meticulously detailing how all of Lewis’s previously unshakeable religious convictions are upended by love and grief. He is perfectly matched by Siff as a forthright but self-aware woman conscious of the fact that she needs to tread delicately in matters of the heart.
Kavanaugh keeps the action flowing smoothly, not fussing about with scene changes but instead allowing the surprisingly large ensemble to supply Bonneville and Siff with fresh clothes and props when required.
On opening night Ayrton English did fine work as Joy’s impeccably behaved eight-year-old son Douglas, an avid reader of The Chronicles of Narnia who struggles to reconcile the fiction of the books with the fact of their author as a sudden presence in his life.
Prior to Shadowlands yesterday, I went to the cinema to see Wuthering Heights. As to which of the two offers the greater depiction of true love, Shadowlands for me wins hands down.
To 9 May (shadowlandsplay.com)
Hence then, the article about forget wuthering heights hugh bonneville in shadowlands will truly move you was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Forget Wuthering Heights – Hugh Bonneville in Shadowlands will truly move you )
Also on site :
- Philippines volcano erupts, blanketing ash across the sky
- 1970 Soft Rock Classic, That Became a Career-Defining Song for ’70s Legend, Ranked Among ‘Greatest Songs of All Time’
- Aldi's Boho Accent Table Is a Small Space Game Changer