The Passenger

German author Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz had a short, tragic life: he fled Nazi Germany for Britain, was interred as an enemy alien, and was deported to a camp in Australia; released in 1942, he attempted to return to Britain but was killed after the ship he was on was torpedoed by a U-boat. Much of his work was lost, and his semi-autobiographical 1938 novel The Man Whoi Took Trains – describing a businessman named Otto’s attempts to leave Germany in the wake of Kristalnacht – was a flop. But the book became an international success after it was reprinted as The Passenger in 2021. And now there’s a play: written by Nadya Menuhin, it’s directed by former Young Vic boss Tim Supple.