THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE
Bear Pit Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, Friday 5th December 2025
I have a theory that people’s nostalgia for the title overshadows their experience of the story. Fond memories from childhood obfuscate what happens in this much-loved classic. Cards on the table: the source material for this play is far from my favourite fantasy novel. In fact, I think it’s…
Viola didn’t look up from the ledger spread before her. “You don’t have an appointment.”
“You don’t make appointments,” he retorted, “and we need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Good, because I have a lot to say to you.” The book closed with a thud, forcing her gaze onto him. Adrian smiled—grimaced might be more accurate—and said, “What’s happened to Cyrus?”
She raised a brow. “How should I know?”
“Don’t be coy, Izmane. Everyone knows he spends an inordinate amount of time here for reasons only the gods can fathom.” He leaned closer. “What’s wrong with my brother?”
Viola stood, waving a flippant hand to disguise how it shook. “Do you want the list alphabetically, or—”
“Viola.”
Viola paused. Considered. When was the last time Adrian had called her by anything but her surname? A decade at least. Probably even longer than that.
“He’s home all the time,” Adrian continued. “He just shuts himself in his room and sleeps, and frankly, that’s the most concerning part.”
“Because no one should sleep so—”
“Because he hates it there,” Adrian cut in. “We both know he hates it there. So why is he spending all his time under a roof he despises when he could be here? Or at that apartment he has with the dancer girl?”
Viola swallowed. “I haven’t spoken to Cyrus in several days.” She could see Luka’s eyes narrowing in her minds eye, the way they did when—as she now knew—he could sense the deception hidden beneath the statement. It wasn’t technically a lie. She hadn’t spoken to Cyrus since she learned what he’d done. But Cyrus had spoken to her, or tried to. He gave up once it became clear she wouldn’t be opening the door.
“Why?”
“Why do you care?” she snapped. “Since when are you such a good big brother?”
His eyes flashed “Believe it or not, some of us protect our family,” he spat. “Cyrus can hate me all he likes, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s my brother, and it’s my job to keep him safe. I can’t do that when he won’t talk to me, but that’s normal. Why isn’t he talking to you?”
“He killed Beckham,” Viola blurted out. “Him and Phoebe, they lured him to the temple and murdered him. Did he tell you that?”
“We’re not close like that.”
She scoffed. “Really? You’re close enough to come knocking at my door at the first sign of trouble.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to see a ghost and know they’re not even dead yet?” Adrian prowled closer, blocking off any chance of escape. “He doesn’t eat, or speak, or smile. Do you know how strange it is to see Cyrus apathetic? He’s haunting out house, Viola.” His voice broke and gods, what sort of world did she live in where Adrian McCarthy was gentle?
“Have you really been here for four days?” Adrian pressed. There was a crease between his brows and a frown tugged his mouth into an ungainly pout. It looked to anyone else like he was genuinely upset over his lack of awareness. And Cyrus had no doubt he was upset, but not out of concern.
“Perhaps. Maybe I’m lying to prove a point.”
“You’re insufferable.”
Against his better judgement, his breath caught in his throat. Adrian’s eyes narrowed, a hound following a blood trail, and Cyrus flashed a charming but hollow smile and stepped carelessly out of arm’s reach. “And yet, you suffer me nonetheless,” he crooned. Hovering on the bottom step, he waited. This, more than anything else, resulted in a phenomenon Cyrus had only witnessed on a handful of occasions. A shadow passed over Adrian’s face as grief and disgust warred with each other. His fingers twitched at his side. Cyrus cocked his head and the spell was broken. Adrian sighed, and Cyrus pounced. “Will you inform the master of the house?”
Adrian rolled his eyes. “Yes. Father should know that you—”
“Then expect me to be gone within the hour,” Cyrus said, already halfway up the stairs. It would have been trivially easy for Adrian to give chase, demand he sit before their father and explain why he had been hiding in the attic, squirreling away meals for the better part of a week. Perhaps he would have to explain how and why he went to the casino, too. But Adrian only watched him from the base of the stairs until Cyrus could no longer see him through the steps.
“Mister McCarthy!” A booming voice called out. Cyrus paused, dreading what he knew was inevitable. “A moment, sir.”
“What do you want?” Adrian snapped. Cyrus winced. It was entirely his fault the poor man was on the receiving end of Adrian’s wrath. Still, he couldn’t feel completely awful about it. At least Adrian hadn’t spoken to him in such a cold manner.
“It’s Viola Izmane. She’s—”
Cyrus was already moving, rushing up the stairs to grab his coat and shoes, shoving his feet in the latter and arms through the former. The enforcement officer was still speaking—rambling, really—when Cyrus breezed past them, coattails flapping in his wake.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Adrian demanded. Cyrus sidestepped Adrian’s attempt to catch his elbow, spinning out of his grasp.
“Where I always go, my dear brother,” Cyrus said with a lazy salute. “To fix this.”
Four days ago, after leaving his disastrous conversation with Viola and electing to never think of it again, he burst into Adrian’s quaint third-story office that had once been Cyrus’s bedroom and disrupted what appeared to be a very important meeting. The men in suits turned in outrage, practically spitting in their fury, but Adrian simply flicked his wrist and told them to disperse. “This had better be important,” Adrian said, prepared to continue regaling Cyrus with tales of his own stupidity, but something passed over his face and he stood, circling to the front of the too large desk in the too small room, and took Cyrus’ chin in his hands.
His fingers had been cold. It was the only thing Cyrus could focus on as his brother touched him in anything other than reprimand for the first time in years. Adrian tilted his head this way and that until Cyrus finally blinked out of his stupor to recoil away from those long, thin fingers he knew as well as his own. They were his own. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t look well,” Adrian had said. “You didn’t look like this last night.”
“I met up with Viola after the—”
Adrian scoffed, expression souring. “Well, that certainly explains it. Drink too much, did you? Still hunting for the edge of the cliff?”
“Beckham is dead,” he had said. Viola’s beratement came from a place of grief, he knew that, and he allowed it until she gave him the room to retaliate. It was a give and a take, a dance as much as a fight. Adrian did not pick fights he didn’t win, and Cyrus still had the reminder hidden in his hair of why he should not protest in his own defense.
Adrian froze halfway to sitting. “I’m sorry, I believe I misheard you.”
“Beckham Silver is dead,” he repeated. “You didn’t know?”
“Of course I didn’t know.” He was standing now, gripping the back of his chair like a lifeline. Hurt flashed in his eyes. Cyrus still couldn’t decide if it was genuine days later, and the internal debate made him sick. What monsters we’ve become. “Do you think I’d have kept it from you if I did?” Cyrus shrugged, noncommittal, and flicked a piece of lint from his shoulder.
From the prologue, written in third person present and doing some funky narrative shenanigans:
A hand lands on the young man’s shoulder, solid and heavy. It squeezes too hard and he forces a good natured smile. Perhaps someone else would see through lies he was never all that skilled at weaving, but the owner of the hand has only ever seen rictus grins and harsh laughter from the man. The Hand does not question the sudden rigidity of the young man’s spine.
“Come with me,” the Hand says. It guides him away from the crowd he was trying to disappear amongst and he is struck with familiarity. As it was when he was a child, he turns himself to clay and allows the Hand to shape him into whatever tool he requires. It is easier than burning in the kiln of disapproval. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
As the Hand and young man cross the room, they catch the attention of a traitor. The traitor watches them with dark and discerning eyes, and slips into the crowd to follow.
The Hand stops the young man before a man their father’s age. In the new Eshian style, his russet hair is long and secured away from his thin face with a silver clasp. He looks down on both the young man and the Hand from over a narrow nose, eyes like emeralds narrowed in distaste. He reminds the young man of a rat.
“Declan Reynes,” Declan says, extending a hand. The young man splits his lips into a smile and does not take the offer. The Hand will berate him after if he shakes it, if he dares to touch the filth of those not fortunate enough to be born into wealth. He can see the gold thread in Declan’s waistcoat, the genuine gleam of every ring he wears. But that’s not enough when speaking to a McCarthy. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Reynes is a new associate of mine,” the Hand says with a smile the young man does not trust. He says something else, too, but the young man is distracted by the sudden ripple of his shadow across the sticky floor. He is distracted, and so he does not notice the traitor’s gaze flick, briefly, to glance at the young man’s shadow as well. “I spent a good deal of coin investing in him.”
For clarity:
Cyrus McCarthy=the young man
Adrian McCarthy=the hand
??=the traitor
