Lucy, Lucy and Lucy Barfield

It’s gutting, that moment when you tell yourself—once and for all—that the fantasy worlds you read about as a child, that you longed to inhabit, do not exist. For performer Lucy Grace it was that moment, when she relinquished any hope of every going to Narnia like her fictional namesake Lucy Pevensie, that sparked a different kind of quest.

With a big smile, a warm heart and a fur coat, Grace tells us the story of a third Lucy: the real and tragic life Lucy Barfield, to whom C.S. Lewis dedicated The Lion, The Witch And The Wardobe.

It’s the way these three Lucys and their three stories weave together that makes this show special. Grace slips in and out of fiction and reality. Hard facts about Barfield’s life are elusive, and Grace draws attention to some of the fictitious elements in telling her own story. It’s a seamless continuum from truth to fantasy.

Along the way Grace looks at religion. Not only does it reflect the Christian metaphor that runs through The Lion, The Witch And The Wardobe, but it also plays into a wider theme of faith and belief in something reassuring, something beyond this world – whether that’s Narnia, heaven or something else. 

Finding out about Lucy Barfield becomes a quest for Grace, just like the quests of the Pevensie children in Lewis’s books. It’s a good old fashioned detective story, but with an extra layer and an extra motivation. 

What’s in a name? For Lucy Grace, it’s her name that allows her to find fantasy and magic in real life and to spread that, with great charm, to her audience.