Review Roundup: THE PASSENGER Opens at Finborough Theatre

The world premiere of a new adaptation of The Passenger by Nadya Menuhin, is being presented at Finborough Theatre through 15 March, 2025. The production is based on the critically acclaimed novel by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, and directed by the multi-award-winning former Artistic Director of the Young Vic, Tim Supple. The Passenger stars Ben Fox, Eric MacLennan, Dan Milne, Robert Neumark Jones, and Kelly Price.

Shot through with Hitchcockian tension, The Passenger is the terrifyingly absurd story of Otto Silbermann, a criminal on the run who hasn’t committed a crime.Kristallnacht, Berlin, November 1938. The streets of Germany are an orgy of state-sanctioned violence.

As Nazi storm troopers batter down his door, respected businessman Otto flees his home and finds himself plunged into a new world order, his life dissolved overnight. 

Betrayed by family, friends and colleagues, and desperately trying to conceal his Jewish identity, he takes train after train across Germany in a race to escape his homeland that is no longer home... 

23 year old Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz wrote The Passenger at breakneck speed in 1938 in the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht. Rediscovered 70 years later, The Passenger became an international hit, was translated into over twenty languages and was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller more than 80 years after it was originally published. See what the critics are saying...

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Gary Naylor, BroadwayWorld: The play doesn’t work completely. Tim Supple directs at a frenetic pace, scenes piling one on top of another, inevitably flattening the characters into types. The only exception is a middle class woman who offers something close to compassion to Otto, a rare opportunity for Kelly Price step out of the ensemble and do some character work. At over 90 minutes all-through in the tight confines of the space, it’s a gruelling watch (maybe it has to be) but there’s no time to reflect on the impact of one conversation before the next is reaching its conclusion. It’s also inexplicably, almost painfully, loud, even in scenes not characterised by trauma.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: Terror never really collects, although there is certainly a sense of Otto’s rising frustration at the senselessness of his changed status from citizen to state pariah. The production captures the dizzying circuitousness of his journey but not the fear, tension, panic and depths of rage that this story deserves.

Sarah, Theatre and Tonic: This show leaves its mark and proves exactly why theatregoers should venture beyond WC1 to fringe venues at the thumping heart of the London theatre scene. However, the careful curation of talent and creatives has created a theatrical symphony that makes this show ripe for the West End . Go and see it while you can still afford to.

John Groves, London Theatre1: Tim Supple’s splendidly pacey direction rarely lets the piece flag and he has intelligently placed the action in-the-round on a white and black tiled floor with red padded benches on all four sides of the acting area, imaginatively often placing the secondary characters at the corners in half-light so that they never obscure Otto and there is always room for them to sit, whether that is on a train, or elsewhere.  Hannah Schmidt is responsible for both set and costume design, both of which are striking, always apt yet simple.

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