SHADOWLANDS starring Hugh Bonneville to play in the West End for a limited season

Emmie Newitt 13 October, 2025, 12:00

The BAFTA, Primetime Emmy, and Golden Globe Award-nominated actor will feature in the play, based on a true story, for a limited run in the West End in 2026.

shadowlands aldwych theatre Hugh Bonneville as C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands. Photo by Manuel Harlan

Written by William Nicholson and adapted from his own original BAFTA Award-winning TV Movie, Shadowlands will play at the Aldwych Theatre from 5 February.

The production originally opened at the Theatre Royal Plymouth in 1989 before transferring to the West End in the same year. It became a smash hit, winning the Evening Standard Award for Best Play, followed by a triumphant Tony Award-winning Broadway transfer. Shadowlands was also adapted into a major feature film in 1993 by Richard Attenborough and starred Antony Hopkins and Debra Winger. It did win a BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film.

It was last performed in the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2019, and now Rachel Kavanaugh (The Great British Bake Off Musical) returns to direct the West End run.

Hugh Bonneville reprises his role as C.S.Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia), whose orderly academic life as an Oxford Don is upended by the arrival of the spirited American poet, Joy Davidman. What begins as a meeting of minds, Shadowlands becomes an uplifting and powerful journey of love and the fragile beauty of life.

Shadowlands will play at the Aldwych Theatre from 5 February - 9 May 2026. It will follow the limited run of Elf The Musical, which runs to 3 January.

Shadowlands Tickets