Dance

Charles Dance has been named best actor in the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Shadowlands.

I went to see it a few weeks ago, and his is indeed a fine performance in a fine play.

The alchemy of acting, at least for me, resides in the communication of the spaces between the words; impulses repressed, fleeting reactions, inarticulacy even.

There is a moment in the play when Dance - as C.S. Lewis - is standing, with his hands in his pockets, downstage of Janie Dee as Joy as her character tells him some bad news she has received.

You can tell that he wants to reach out to her but somehow can't bring himself to do it, and looks down at the fists bunched in his jacket in a sort of reproach as if they don't belong to him.

I have no idea how one writes, directs or performs such a virtuoso manifestation of a scene, but it is a privilege to see it done.