Shadowlands
is a 1985 television film, written by William Nicholson, directed by Norman Stone and produced by David M. Thompson for BBC Wales. Its subject is the relationship between Oxford don and author, C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham.
It has subsequently been adapted by Nicholson as a stage play and then as a cinema film. The film began life as a script entitled I Call it Joy
written for Thames Television by Brian Sibley and Norman Stone. Sibley was credited on the BBC film as 'consultant' and went on to write the book, Shadowlands: The True Story of C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman
.
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SHADOWLANDS TICKETS
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Production history
The original TV film starred
Joss Ackland as Lewis, with
Claire Bloom as his lover and wife
Joy Gresham. It won BAFTA Awards in 1986 for Best Play and Best Actress (Bloom).
It was subsequently adapted for the stage, opening at the
Queen's Theatre in London on 23 October 1989, running until 8 September 1990. The production was directed by
Elijah Moshinsky and starred
Nigel Hawthorne as Lewis with
Jane Lapotaire as Joy. It won Best Play in the
Evening Standard Awards for 1990.
Hawthorne successfully took the role of Lewis to
Broadway, playing at the
Brooks Atkinson Theatre from November 1990 to April 1991 and again directed by Moshinsky. Hawthorne co-starred in New York, with
Jane Alexander as Joy, who was now given her maiden name of
Joy Davidman. Hawthorne won a 1991 Tony award for Best Actor, while Nicholson picked up a nomination for Best Play.
In 1993, the play was adapted into a
film of the same name directed by
Richard Attenborough with a screenplay by Nicholson, co-starring
Anthony Hopkins and
Debra Winger, winning Oscar nominations for both Nicholson and Winger.
The first major revival of the play, starring
Charles Dance as Lewis and
Janie Dee as Joy, premiered at
Cambridge Arts Theatre on 5 September 2007 before touring the UK. The production, directed by
Michael Barker-Carven, transferred to the
Wyndham's Theatre on 3 October 2007 for an eleven-week season before transferring to the
Novello Theatre where it ran from 21 December 2007 to 23 February 2008.
Synopsis
The story follows Lewis as he meets an
American fan,
Joy Gresham, whom he befriends and eventually marries. The story also deals with his struggle with personal pain and grief: Lewis preaches that one should endure suffering with patience, but finds that the simple answers he had preached no longer apply when Joy becomes afflicted with
cancer and eventually dies.
Factual inaccuracies
- C. S. Lewis could not drive, yet his drive to Herefordshire is an important moment in the film.
- The film covers events between 1952 and 1960 and shows Lewis teaching at Magdalen College, Oxford. However, this is a simplification of reality: in 1954, Lewis accepted a Professorship in Medieval and Renaissance English at Magdalene College, Cambridge and thus discontinued his teaching at Oxford. He did so, however, on the condition that he would be able to return to his home in Oxford for vacations and long weekends during the university term.
- Joy Gresham broke her leg when answering a telephone call from Kathleen Farrer in her home in Oxford. In the film she breaks her leg answering a call from Lewis in her house in London.
- Joy Gresham was treated in hospital in Oxford, not in London.
- Joy Gresham had two sons, Douglas and David, but David is mentioned nowhere in the play or the films.
Quotes
C. S. Lewis as the film concludes:
"Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more. Only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."
Joy in the stage version:
"See yourself in the mirror, you're separate from yourself. See the world in the mirror, you're separate from the world. I don't want that separation anymore."
See also
- A Grief Observed
— Lewis's own chronicle of his reactions following Joy Gresham's death
- Shadowlands
— Lewis's biography by Brian Sibley
- Shadowlands: The True Story of C S Lewis and Joy Davidman
by Brian Sibley, Hodder & Stoughton (new edition 2005) ISBN 9780340908655
- Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis
by Douglas Gresham, Macmillan (USA 1988) ISBN 0025455702