Aldwych theatre, London
William Nicholson’s take on CS Lewis’s marriage to an American divorcee should have you in bits but it fails to feel as eviscerating as it should

The drama of love and loss in Shadowlands has played out movingly in film and on television. William Nicholson’s take on CS Lewis’s marriage to an American divorcee is that of late-found passion, terminal illness and a crisis of the celebrated writer’s Christian faith. In all its iterations, it is an old-fashioned weepie. In this production, originally staged at Chichester Festival theatre, it just feels old-fashioned.

It has charm and pulls you into its sadness but seems as creaky as the half-filled, wood-panelled library in its backdrop. There is too much a sense of a drama unfolding, from the moment Lewis (Hugh Bonneville) receives a letter from American fan, Joy Davidman (Maggie Siff), to his slow falling in love and her descent into illness.

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London
Using photographs from an archive album of Auschwitz staff relaxing, this searing drama builds into an unforgettable inquiry

This play is based around a single photo album sent to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007. Inside were images from Auschwitz, not of the mostly Jewish prisoners but people working in the concentration camp, from top brass to those much further down the chain.

They are seen smiling, resting and putting up Christmas decorations. Whose album was this, who are the people in the photos and how can we ever fully know what led them here? In trying to reach its answers, this Pulitzer prize finalist, conceived by Moisés Kaufman, plays out like a profound, innovative and unique documentary detective drama.