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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
	Director’s Notes.   CS Lewis, the creator of Narnia, was born in 1898. He had an idyllic childhood in Northern Ireland, which was brought to an abrupt end in 1908 when his beloved mother died and he and his brother were sent away to school.   In 1916, he went to Oxford, and soon afterwards he signed up to fight in the Great War, and was sent straightaway to the Somme. Happily he survived the trenches. He was clearly well equipped to portray the bloody battles that periodically occur throughout the history of the land of Narnia.   Later, on his return to Oxford, he became a close friend of JRR Tolkein. By the time Lewis embarked on his Narnia stories, he was already well established as a serious writer on English literature and religion, and Tolkein, among others, tried hard to dissuade him from writing for children, believing that it would damage his reputation. Tolkein was fiercely critical of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, saying that it simply didn’t work having real children and talking animals alongside Father Christmas, a talking lion and a wicked witch. All too much and too confusing! Fortunately for all of us, Lewis chose to ignore his friend, and the rest, as they say, is history. I love the way he combines several different traditions of mythology, and even creates his own sub-species – fauns, satyrs, centaurs, unicorns, giants and dwarves come face to face with cruels, horrors, hags, effreets, wooses, incubuses, orknies, ettins, grindy-lows, thrumpins, chittifaces, breaknecks, lubberkins, spriggins and bloody-bones to name but a few, and it has been fun creating these nasties for ourselves.   Much ink has been spilled over the significance of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe as a version of the Christian story, and while it unquestionably can be read in that way, it certainly doesn’t have to be. Somehow Lewis managed to create a perfect adventure story, with its mixture of magic and drama, threatened domesticity, fantasy, scariness, heroism, sacrifice, betrayal and redemption. It’s an exciting story for children and adults alike, and the fact that Hollywood has seized on the stories is a tribute to their enduring quality. Narnia will surely live on and give pleasure for many generations to come.   A final word of thanks to everyone who has bravely embarked on this production with me, including Stewart and all the musicians who practiced the entire score in a freezing barn, with numb fingers and dripping noses, on the coldest day in December: not to mention the cast, and everyone who has given their time to produce and publicise the show.....Thank you all.   Cathy Gill, Director   PS. For those of you who perhaps don’t know the books..... Professor Kirk has already been to Narnia.... He is the boy Diggory in The Magician’s Nephew.