PICTURING NARNIA

C S Lewis once said, "For me, all fiction begins with pictures in my head," and that was particularly true of his seven books for children that are collectively known as ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’.

For example, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe grew out of two recurrent pictures that the author had been carrying in his head for some time: one was of a queen riding in a sledge (born, perhaps, from memories of childhood reading of Han Andersen's The Snow Queen) the other was of a faun carrying parcels and an umbrella in a snowy wood and pictured here by Lewis' first illustrator, Pauline Baynes...


When I was given the opportunity to adapt these stories for radio, I really wanted the resulting broadcasts to create pictures in the minds of my listeners.

Later, when those programmes were marketed as audio cassettes, they obviously needed the help of pictures to sell them to a new audience. At that time, most of Pauline Baynes' illustrations were in black and white and I considered myself very fortunate to have had Andrew Skilleter, the well-known fantasy/Dr Who artist create a new series of pictures which adorned the cassette cases for some years and which are currently on display at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum as part of The Wonder of Illustration exhibition,

Although the title of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe tells you, at once, that the lion in question - Aslan, of course - is central to the story, the lion's role in the remaining volumes is sometimes less clearly defined and, in one or two of the books, he seems at first glance to play hardly any part at all, perhaps only making an appearance in the concluding chapters.

What becomes obvious, however, as the history of Narnia unfolds, is that underlying all the stories is the nature and power of Aslan. And this is something that Andrew Skilleter intuitively grasped in making the artwork for these audio versions.

It is most evident in his symbolic designs for the first two adaptations. For The Magician’s Nephew, the artist depicted Aslan bringing life to the barren environment of Narnia, the musical notes of his creation song becoming trees, birds and stars in the new world.


Similarly, for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan is shown straddling two landscapes: one covered in snow from the perpetual winter imposed by the White Witch, the other a verdant spring garden freshly awoken to new life by the returning Lion.


The other five paintings reflect Aslan’s constant presence in the drama: appearing almost as a vision in the desert dust behind the eponymous characters of The Horse and His Boy...


As an heraldic image on the sail of the ship in The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’...


As an ever-watchful (but unseen) observer of the action in Prince Caspian and The Silver Chair...



And, for the final volume, The Last Battle, he is shown standing upon the threshold of the doorway between the dying land of Narnia and the inner world of Aslan’s Country...


Andrew Skilleter brought to these pieces of artwork - together with the slipcase for the collection in the form of an elaborately carved wardrobe (lined with fur coats!) - an intelligence and a sympathy that complimented the telling of these much-loved tales, coupled with a sensibility as a designer for creating intriguing images that invited the listener to discover the story behind the pictures.

The exhibition The Wonder of Illustration remains on show at the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, The King's House, Wiltshire, until Saturday 4 July; Monday-Saturday 10:00 to 17:00; Sundays (July only) 12:00 to 17:00.

There's more of Andrew's work on his official web-site, including his cover art for my radio adaptation of J R R Tolkien's Tales of the Perilous Realm.

Today, the CDs of my Narnia adaptations are decorated with examples of Pauline Baynes line illustrations subsequently coloured by the artist, but it is good that Andrew Skilleter's visions of the land betond the wardrobe are being seen once more.

I'm actually rather proud of these dramatisation (an even longer project - in terms of its 15 hours of air-time - than the epic serialisation of The Lord of the Rings and which was also undertaken single-handedly) as well as of the productions themselves with their star-studded casts that include Bernard Cribbins, Richard Griffiths, Frances Tomelty, Tom Wilkinson, Sylvester McCoy, Timothy Bateson, Martin Jarvis, Fiona Shaw, John Sessions, Robert Eddison, Maurice Denham, Mary Wimbush, Robin Bailey, Rosemary Martin, Melvyn Hayes, David Collings, Timothy Spall and (in all seven plays) one of the great radio voices, Stephen Thorne, as Aslan.