February-May 2025 season at the Finborough Theatre
The world premiere of a new adaptation of
THE PASSENGER
by Nadya Menuhin.
Based on the novel by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz.
Directed by Tim Supple.
Associate Direction by Joseph Alford. Set and Costume Design by Hannah Schmidt. Lighting Design by Mattis Larsen. Sound Design by Andy Pink.
Cast: Ben Fox. Eric MacLennan. Dan Milne. Robert Neumark Jones. Kelly Price.
Presented by Toby Parsons Productions in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre.
‘Perhaps their idea is to undress us carefully before killing us, so that our clothes won’t be bloodstained and our
banknotes ruined. Murder is carried out economically these days.’
The world premiere of a new adaptation of The Passenger by Nadya Menuhin, 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, opens at the renowned Finborough Theatre for a five-week limited season on Monday, 10 February 2025
The Passenger stars Ben Fox (Mother Courage (Southwark Playhouse), Troilus and Cressida and Bedroom Farce (Theatr Cymru), Blitz (Steve McQueen, Apple TV+); Eric MacLennan (Summer and Smoke (Duke of York’s Theatre and Almeida Theatre), Three Sisters (Almeida Theatre), Brave New World and 1984 (Creation Theatre Company)); Dan Milne (More Grimm Tales, The Jungle Book, As I Lay Dying and Twelfth Night (The Young Vic), Grimm Tales (The Young Vic and International Tour), The Comedy of Errors (Royal Shakespeare Company)); Robert Neumark Jones (One Jewish Boy (Old Red Lion Theatre and Trafalgar Studios), The Mikvah Project (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), A Very Royal Scandal (Amazon MGM Studios)); Kelly Price (Grantchester, Endeavour (ITV), Flowers for Mrs Harris (Riverside Studios), The Sex Party and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Menier Chocolate Factory)).
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.
Playwright Nadya Menuhin makes her full-length debut at the Finborough Theatre.She studied languages at University College London, and currently works as a literary agent. She was part of the Royal Court Theatre Writers’ Group, mentored by Stef Smith, and BBC Writersroom London Voices cohort. Her previous plays include I, Mother (Fuel Residency at Druid Theatre, Galway), The Second Rule (Mercury Theatre, Colchester) and Tremors, starring Tamsin Greig (Online for Bitter Pill Theatre).
Novelist Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz (1915-1942) was born in Berlin. In 1935, Boschwitz’s uncle, the lawyer Alexander Wolgast, was murdered in the street after criticizing the Nazi’s anti-semitic Nuremberg Laws. Shortly thereafter, Boschwitz and his mother fled Germany for Norway; his sister, Clarissa, had already left Germany for Palestine when the Nazis came to power. In Norway, Boschwitz wrote his first novel Menschen neben dem Leben (People Alongside Life), which was first published in Swedish, under the pseudonym John Grane, in 1937. From Sweden, he and his mother moved to Luxembourg, France, and Belgium, before fleeing to Britain in 1939. Boschwitz wrote The Passenger (Der Reisende) in 1938, and it was published in French, Swedish and English. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Boschwitz and his mother were interned as ‘enemy aliens’ on the Isle of Man. In July 1940, Ulrich was deported to Australia, where he was interned at a camp in New South Wales. On the voyage there, a crew member threw the only draft of his latest work, Das Grosse Fressen (The Big Feast), into the ocean. In Australia, Boschwitz worked on revising a second edition of The Passenger and began a new novel, Traumtage (Dream Days).In 1942, he was freed and allowed to return to Britain. On 29 October 1942, the vessel he was on, MV Abosso, was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-575. Boschwitz, aged 27, was one of the 362 people onboard who died. His last works died with him.
Director Tim Supple’s awards and nominations include Olivier, BAFTA, Evening Standard, Time Out, TMA, Herald Angel, Dora Mavor Moore Award in Toronto, and Yapi Krede Afifi in Istanbul. He was the former Artistic Director of The Young Vic where he directed A Servant to Two Masters (also West End, National and International Tours), As I Lay Dying, Twelfth Night, Blood Wedding, The Jungle Book, Grimm Tales (also International Tour), More Grimm Tales (also Broadway), The Slab Boys Trilogy and Oedipus. For the Royal Shakespeare Company, he directed Midnight’s Children (Barbican, National Tour and Apollo Theatre, New York), Love in a Wood, Tales from Ovid (The Young Vic), The Comedy of Errors (The Young Vic, National and International Tours) and Spring Awakening (Barbican Theatre). For the National Theatre, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Billy Liar (also National Tour), Accidental Death of an Anarchist (also National Tour), Whale, Romeo and Juliet, and The Villains Opera. For the Donmar Warehouse, The Cosmonauts Last Message… For Kenneth Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company, Coriolanus and John Sessions’ Traveling Tales. Other theatre includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream and One Thousand and One Nights (Dash Arts and Edinburgh Festival), Freedom on the Tyne (Tyne Bridge), TheTempest (National Centre for Performing Arts, Beijing), Dmitry (Marylebone Theatre), What We Did To Weinstein (Dash Arts and Menier Chocolate Factory), As You Like It (Dash Arts and Curve Leicester), Beasts and Beauties, Too Clever By Half (Norwegian National Theatre, Bergen), Much Ado About Nothing (Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berlin), The Comedy of Errors (BBT, Istanbul), Oh What a Lovely War, Guys and Dolls (Haymarket Theatre, Leicester) and Billy Budd (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield). He has directed, adapted, researched and taught theatre across the world in a wide range of languages – including in Europe, India, North Africa and the near East, Iran, Turkey, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Russia and the post-Soviet States, and North and South America. Tim is the recipient of a NESTA Invention and Innovation Award for experiments in film.
The Cast of The Passenger is:
Ben Fox | Gustav Becker, Franz
Theatre includes The Commitments (Palace Theatre), Backbeat (Duke of York’s Theatre), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Savoy Theatre),Guys and Dolls (National Tour), Mother Courage (Southwark Playhouse), Troilus and Cressida and Bedroom Farce (Theatr Cymru), Judgement Day (Almeida Theatre), A Trip to Scarborough and Awaking Beauty (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough). Ben has appeared in many pantomimes including in Catford, Liverpool, Bolton, Hornchurch, Ipswich, Clwyd and Salisbury.
Film includes Blitz, Detective Pikachu, Beauty and The Beast, Muppets Most Wanted and Robin Hood. Television includes Star Wars Andor, The Living Dead, Les Misérables, Pennyworth, The Crown, Game Of Thrones and Silent Witness.
Eric MacLennan | Theo Findler, Schwartz
Trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq.
Theatre includes Summer and Smoke (Duke of York’s Theatre and Almeida Theatre), Three Sisters (Almeida Theatre), Brave New World and 1984 (Creation Theatre Company), A Tale of Two Cities (Chung Ying Theatre Company, Hong Kong), One Snowy Night (Slot Machine), Government Inspector and Annie Get Your Gun (The Young Vic), Backwards (Station House Opera), Henry V (Southwark Playhouse), Sirens of Titan, The Odyssey, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Wolf, Mother Goose and… The Wolf, You Can’t Say You Can’t Play, Cinderella, Pericles, Sleeping Beauty and The Wolf, Red Riding Hood and The Wolf,(London Bubble Theatre), Salt (Ruhrtriennale Festival and Theatre-Rites), Beachcomber/Strandjutter (Boilerhouse and Waterlanders, Netherlands), Cyrano de Bergerac (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Gormenghast (David Glass Ensemble), Half Life (National Theatre of Scotland), Get Carter (Red Shift Theatre Company), Here’s What I Did With My Body One Day (National Tour), The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Private Lives and TalkSexShow (Volcano Theatre), The Night Shift and A Wing and A Prayer (Battersea Arts Centre and Oxford Playhouse) and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond).
Film includes Mary Queen of Scots, Darkest Hour, Rogue One, Mindhorn and Anna Karenina.
Television includes The Inside Man, The Last Bus, The Night Manager and The Borgias.
Dan Milne | Fritz, Lilienfeld
Trained at Drama Studio London.
Theatre includes More Grimm Tales, The Jungle Book, As I Lay Dying and Twelfth Night (The Young Vic), Grimm Tales (The Young Vic and International Tour), The Comedy of Errors (Royal Shakespeare Company), He Who Saw Everything and From Morning Till Midnight (National Theatre) and Lionboy (National and International Tour for Complicité).
Television includes Eastenders, Murder Most Horrid, In a Land of Plenty, The Nevers and Star Wars: The Acolyte.
Direction includes Big Space and Small Space (Battersea Arts Centre).
Associate Direction includes A Servant to Two Masters (New Ambassadors Theatre, Duke of York’s Theatre and International Tour).
In New York, he helped create the storytelling performance piece, Two Men Talking, and directed this for ten years as it played off-Broadway, around the US, at the Edinburgh Festival and at Trafalgar Studios in London.
As a film producer, he works with US writer/director Camille Thoman, and produced her documentary feature The Longest Gameand narrative feature Never Here, starring Sam Shepard and Mireille Enos. In the UK, he produced Widow’s Walk starring Miranda Raison, David Caves and Virginia McKenna with writer/director Alexandra Boyd. He is currently developing another feature with Camille Thoman and Tobias Menzies, entitled The Gate.
As Co-Director with Jane Nash, Dan runs the storytelling consultancy Narativ London.
Robert Neumark Jones | Otto Silbermann
Trained at Drama Centre London.
Theatre includes One Jewish Boy (Old Red Lion Theatre and Trafalgar Studios), The Mikvah Project (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond),The Tempest (London Theatre Workshop), Bang Bang (Mercury Theatre, Colchester), Kiss Me and You Will See How Important I Am (Pleasance London) and The Seagull, The Threesome, The Deep Blue Sea and Twelfth Night (Drama Centre London).
Television includes A Very Royal Scandal, Spotless and Grange Hill.
Radio includes Les Anti-Mythes and Yentl The Yeshiva Boy.
Kelly Price | Elfriede, Ursula
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Perchance to Dream.Theatre includes Flowers for Mrs Harris (Riverside Studios), The Sex Party and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Menier Chocolate Factory), Passion and Aspects of Love (Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester), What’s New Pussycat? (Birmingham Rep), Peter Pan (Troubadour Theatre), Othello (English Touring Theatre), All The Angels: Handel and the First Messiah (Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre), Little Shop of Horrors, The Day We Sang and Zack (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), One Man Two Guvnors (National Theatre Tour), Company and Boeing Boeing (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Stepping Out (Salisbury Playhouse), The Misanthrope (Comedy Theatre), A Little Light Music (Menier Chocolate Factory and Garrick Theatre), Chicago (Cambridge Theatre), Desperately Seeking Susan (Novello Theatre), The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice (The Watermill, Newbury), Guys and Dolls (Donmar Warehouse and Piccadilly Theatre), It’s A Wonderful Life (Avalon), Mamma Mia (Prince Edward Theatre) and The Woman in White (The Really Useful Group).
Film includes The Sense of an Ending and A Bunch of Amateurs.
Television includes Grantchester Series 7,The English Game, Endeavour, Midsomer Murders, Waterloo Road, Doctors, Accused – Helen’s Story, Massive and Kombat Opera.
The press on the novel The Passenger
“Gripping.” The Telegraph
“Extraordinary.” The Sunday Times
“A story that is part John Buchan, part Franz Kafka and wholly riveting.” The Guardian
“Vibrating with fury…a highly accomplished work, filled with vivid characterisation, sharp dialogue and intensely observed scenes.” Financial Times“All too chillingly real…a deserving bestseller.” Daily Mail
“A riveting, noirish, intensely filmic portrait… a jewel of a rediscovery.” Wall Street Journal
“By turns claustrophobic, dizzying and symbolic, The Passenger is a work with sufficient pace to be a thriller, yet possessed of enough nuance and psychological depth to be of real literary weight.” The Spectator
“This brilliant rediscovered thriller is up there with the best Second World War novels.” David Mills, The Sunday Times
The press on director Tim Supple
“The leading storyteller in British Theatre” Financial Times for 1001 Nights.
“A production that’s already entered the annals of theatrical history” Time Out on A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“An evening full of wonder and delight.” Time Out on A Servant to Two Masters.
“A triumphant recreation of Goldoni’s comedy. One of the gems of the season.” The Sunday Times on A Servant to Two Masters.
“An enthralling production – one hangs on these tales as if they had never been told before.” Financial Times on Tales from Ovid.
“This dark, beautiful show offers more rough magic than any in living memory… One of the most gripping and exciting productions of the year.” Daily Telegraph on More Grimm Tales.
“Not a single line feels familiar…everything feels new, but also true. A lesson to all London theatre.” Financial Times on Twelfth Night.
“The National Theatre should be very proud of this enchanting, beautiful production.” The Sunday Times on Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
“Challenging, tough minded and dramatically thrilling, this is the kind of show that restores one’s faith in the power of theatre…I left the theatre in a state of awe.” The Daily Telegraph on The Jungle Book.
“A complete triumph…The best demonstration all year of the living power of theatre.” The Observer on Spring Awakening.
Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Box Office 020 7244 7439
No booking fees
Performance Length: Approximately 90 minutes.
Monday, 10 February – Saturday, 15 March 2025
Monday, 10 February at 7.30pm. Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 7.30pm. Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3.00pm.
Prices for Week One – Tickets £20, £18 concessions.
Previews £15 all seats.
£10 tickets for Under 30s for performances from Monday to Saturday of the first week when booked online only.
£15 tickets for residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham on the first Saturday evening of each run, when booked online only.
Prices for Weeks Two and Three – Tickets £23, £20 concessions, except Tuesday evenings £20 all seats.
Prices for Week Four and Five – Tickets £25, £23 concessions. No concessions on Friday or Saturday evenings.
Group Bookings for all performances – 1 free ticket in every 10 purchased.
Covid Safe performance – Masks are mandatory at the first Sunday matinee performance.