Amanda Hodges talks to actor and comedian Tony Slattery as he enters the Shadowlands at Windsor's Theatre Royal, from March 29 – April 2
For most people the name of Tony Slattery evokes affectionate memories of razor-sharp improvisation, courtesy of 90s TV game show Whose Line Is It Anyway?
A far cry indeed from his new role as Major WH Lewis, or ‘Warnie’, the brother of writer, Oxford don and Christian apologist CS Lewis in William Nicholson’s celebrated stage play Shadowlands.
And yet, in many ways, Tony seems the ideal inhabitant of Lewis world.
“I was educated at a Catholic grammar school and CS Lewis was required reading there,” he says. “If I went on Mastermind I would answer every question on him, but on the general knowledge I’d get nothing!”
This, of course, is not entirely true. Before finding his niche with the Cambridge Footlights in the 1980s, Tony himself had intended to become an academic. Fortune intervened, however, and he found himself in showbusiness, crossing paths with the young Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie.
“I was lucky enough to fall in with that bunch and I just adored it. I did get a degree – but only just. It was a charmed time!”
Shadowlands is a play he knows well. It is, he admits, the only thing to have tempted him to end his recent professional hiatus.
“Yes, it’s the one thing that’s really piqued my interest – so beautifully written and concise and emotionally true. It explains the whole lot: death, life, love, loss, belief in God.... everything!”
Warnie, Tony’s character, provides a bluff foil to the more cerebral, incisive CS Lewis. He is, says Tony, a man of underrated virtues.
“He’s not some old codger – his mind is very sharp and he knows his onions when it comes to practicality. He is a good and decent man, linked to his brother with hoops of steel. They live a quiet life together which is then exploded by the arrival of Joy.”
This is Joy Davidman, the American poet and writer whom CS Lewis married in 1956, only to watch her die from cancer just four years later.
“There’s a restraint about Warnie which, for me, is a challenge. He’s very funny and gruff though, a man of few words who talks utter common sense, often cutting through the intellectual swordsmanship of academia.
“I’m really looking forward to the tour; to the discipline and simply to being in a piece which I know is good.”
Shadowlands comes to the Theatre Royal Windsor, March 29 – April 2
It moves to Fairfield Halls in Croydon from April 5-9
It also arrives at Richmond Theatre from July 25-30
