Some works of art live forever. In that select category one would certainly include The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the 1950 novel by CS Lewis that inaugurated the seven Chronicles of Narnia fantasy classics that have long ago become literary touchstones here and abroad.
Such is the enduring power of Lewis’s far-reaching narrative that his tale of entry into the magical world of Narnia has been frequently adapted. Some may know the 1988 version done for the BBC or the 2005 film or even the audio book narrated by Michael York. And, looking to the future, there are plans afoot for Greta Gerwig, the director of the blockbuster film Barbie to direct The Chronicles of Narnia for Netflix.
This wonderful adaptation which will be touring throughout 2025, celebrates the 75th anniversary of the publication of the book. Look for the four Pevensie children, Aslan, and the White Witch – just a few of the novel’s beloved creations. Oh, and let’s not forget Schrodinger, the cat.
How best to realise such an iconic novel onstage? The answer, says director Michael Fentiman, lies in what he refers to as “total theatre – a mixture of dance, puppetry, and actor-musicianship” that allows for a “shared empathy,” in his phrase, onstage as well as between performer and spectator. From the start, the director understood the challenge he was undertaking: “In 200 years time, [Lewis’s book] will be like one of our Mystery Plays. It comes with a sort of magic bound up with the soul of Britishness.
The reason why it’s a classic is that it has a sort of palpable mythic-ness that pulls from something older that we can understand subconsciously. It’s an enduring classic because its magic in a way is contained in us.” If Fentiman is addressing the direct appeal of the story, the task nonetheless is to find a way of invigorating that tale anew, this time with 23 actors and musicians and dancers, including Katy Stephens as the White Witch and a puppetry director, Toby Olié, who is a leading figure in this fast-evolving world. “There’s so much joy in the room,” adds Fentiman, who’s previous shows include Amelie and The Windsors: Endgame in the West End.
Toby Olié began as a performing puppeteer who did five years in War Horse – “I moved from the back legs of Joey to the head,” he laughs, explaining his arc within the theatrical milestone – before deciding he was happier offstage, generating new material for generations of talent to come. “I’d always wanted to make my own work and felt with War Horse as if my performing bug had been fulfilled.” (He regards that show as the puppetry equivalent of Hamlet.)
To that end, Olié, now 36, hasn’t actually performed in a production since the 2017 revival of the Venus & Adonis collaboration between the RSC and Islington’s Little Angel puppet theatre. The joy with Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he explains, is the extent to which the puppets come embedded in the narrative. Meryl Streep, reports Olié, likes to say with regard to her choice of work that she considers what the material might be like “if they took her character away. And I often find myself thinking with puppets, if you took them away would the story still be the same?” The answer here is an emphatic no. “They exist in the fabric of the story, as well as an extension or manifestation of it. They’re there to heighten the emotions as well as emphasize the theatricality: if the puppets came out of the story, the narrative wouldn’t be the same.”
The aim, Olié continues, was to avoid presenting a “museum piece that ticks all the boxes of what people have come to expect.” The idea, instead, was to give the puppets their own “throughline”, he says, “or action”. “I like to think that perhaps we’ve upped the intensity level of what was there before – it’s not about reinventing the wheel but about seeing how far we can go with a core set of ideas.” To that extent, the talking lion, Aslan, is intended to look like he’s “made of terra cotta – like a piece of ancient pottery as if he was there before anyone else.” There are swirling light cubes of Turkish delight and more than 30 puppets or puppeteering elements.
The result, says Olié, honours the uptick of puppets in work ranging from Fentiman’s own production of Amelie to The Lorax at the Old Vic and The Life of Pi. “People now talk about puppets as if they’re really actors, which shows the degree to which puppetry has been taken on board. It’s not enough anymore just to do very beautiful representations: if people enjoy the form, then you have to ask how can we develop it? What we’ve done with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is not just step into the narrative but add to it as well.”
The production is set in wartime Britain in the 1940s that the novel inhabits and that renders the children evacuees ripe to tumble through the wardrobe into the beautiful and strange world of Narnia. “
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is at Norwich Theatre Royal between 8 – 12 Jul. For more information or to book, visit norwichtheatre.org or call the Box Office on 01603 630 000.
