Edinburgh Fringe Review: Lucy, Lucy and Lucy Barfield ✭✭✭✭

Review by Ellen Cree

Lucy, Lucy and Lucy Barfield is a well written one woman show with moments of humour, sadness, joy and reflection about a young woman, named Lucy Grace (believe it or not) who as child was, and still is, obsessed with C.S. Lewis famous book Narnia book series, and in particular ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.’ Upon reading the book constantly as a child and becoming captivated with the BBC television adaptation, Lucy Grace believed that Narnia quite possibly could truly exist, and due to her namesake Lucy Pevensie playing such an important role, that she was destined to get to Narnia one day. However, as Lucy Grace reached her 20s, she noticed, while about to start rereading her favourite book (again), that in the dedication page at the beginning of her treasured book, the name Lucy Barfield was printed. This sees Lucy Grace’s quest into finding out information about ‘the real Lucy’ begin.

Lucy Grace’s search for enlightenment on the ambiguous Lucy Barfield takes her to all corners of the internet as she investigates online Narnia forums, back and forth letters to the Lewis family and even managing to speak to an old friend of Lucy Barfield. Lucy Grace manages to find out a lot about Barfield and the traumatic life she led due to illness.

Lucy Barfield almost becomes like a symbol of hope for Lucy Grace, and at times makes the performance becomes quite sad to watch, although it definitely remains captivating. As a Narnia fan myself, the show was extremely interesting and my attention was fully in the performance. 

For me, going into this very impressive and simplistic show with not much information on what I was letting myself in for, I was left pleasantly surprised and I could not stop thinking about what I had learned. It truly goes to show how someone's story can change and impact lives.