Review: Hugh Bonneville gets back to basics

Hugh Bonneville has cornered the market in playing very correct English gents and he predictably shines in the role of C S Lewis in Rachel Kavanaugh’s assured revival of Shadowlands.

He steps into the well-polished brogues of Joss Ackland and Anthony Hopkins who have already essayed the part in respectively television and film, but Bonneville makes more of the character’s deadpan humour, which works well on stage.

William Nicholson’s story – focusing on The Chronicles of Narnia author’s relationship with the dying American poet Joy Davidman (Maggie Siff, on admirable form) – is now so well known it’s hard not to watch the production without wondering when exactly Joy’s going to give the first intimation of her mortality.

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In less accomplished hands – and with audiences who come in principally to see the Downton Abbey star in the flesh – it could all too easily have become mildly risible, but the principals play it with such dedication it still manages to pull at the heart strings.

The dreaming spires of Oxford, where C S Lewis lectured, are well evoked by Peter McKintosh and there are some great turns along the way from Timothy Watson as the bitchy and mildly camp Christopher who is no great fan of Joy and Drop the Dead Donkey’s Jeff Rawle as Lewis’s brother

Good, traditional, well-acted and directed theatre that gives an encouraging intimation that the West End is finally in a mood to get back to basics.

Shadowlands plays at the Aldwych Theatre in London until May 9