Mark Addy leads an 'exceptional' cast in adaptation of hit novel 

Rachel Joyce's novel about a "Bunyanesque modern-day everyman who goes out to post a letter to his terminally-ill, long-lost friend", but ends up walking instead from Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed to see her in person, became a bestseller in 2012 and was turned into a film a decade later. This new stage adaptation is infused with the same "syrupy, unabashed sentimentality" as both of those, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian, but it has a "winning twist": a musical score by Passenger (singer-songwriter Michael Rosenberg) that "blasts the story through with folksy heart and foot-stomping soul". Throw in the vibrant choreography and imaginative staging, and this "idiosyncratic" show has the makings of a "quirky West End transfer".

It's hard to make sense of a 500-mile hike on stage, said Sarah Crompton on WhatsOnStage, but Katy Rudd's production is boosted by stirring video projections and lighting that conjure up landscapes, cathedrals and, finally, the sea. Also crucial are the "strongly sung" performances "from an exceptional cast", led by Mark Addy as Harold. The standout numbers include the "uplifting gospel" of "Walk Upon the Water" (a powerhouse performance by Sharon Rose); "You're F**ked" (sung by Madeleine Worrall as the doctor treating Harold's tired feet), and the soaring "Keep on Walking Mr Fry" ("beautifully sung" by Worrall again, this time playing a nun).

The "irreverence" of some of the songs punctures the possible "mawkishness" of a story about a man who walks the length of England alone, in yachting shoes, without being mugged or facing "any other serious mishap", said Rachel Halliburton in The Times. By bringing a "sense of myth" to Harold's quest – the evening starts with a Pan-like figure singing a lament for his life – this "captivating" production "gives potency to his belief that, by walking to Berwick, he can save the cancer-stricken Queenie", who turns out to be the key to his troubled relationship with his wife and son. It would "take a heart of Antarctic ice not to be moved by how this unravels". Let's hope "Harold's next stop will be in London".

Minerva, Chichester Festival Theatre. Until 14 June

by Robert Macfarlane

Rivers in Britain – and indeed across the world – are in an abject state, said Alex Preston in The Observer. Mainly, they are "dying" because of pollution (in Britain, chiefly sewage) but the "riverine crisis" has other causes, including drought resulting from climate change and the repercussions of "our wish to harness their power".

This context lends timeliness to Robert Macfarlane's latest book, which centres on his trips to four river systems. "Three are distant: the rivers of the Los Cedros cloud forest in Ecuador; the polluted waterways threading through and beneath Chennai, and the Mutehekau Shipu (Magpie River) flowing into the Gulf of St Lawrence in Quebec." The fourth is a small chalk spring close to Macfarlane's home in Cambridge, which he visits "before and after each far-flung journey". On each trip, Macfarlane spends time with activists, who urge him towards an eco-spiritualist conception of rivers as being somehow "alive". Full of "sublime" writing, "Is a River Alive?" is a "powerful synthesis of literature, activism and ethics", and another triumph from this wonderful travel writer.

Macfarlane is a bit too indulgent of his activist companions, whom some readers may find "unbearable", said James McConnachie in The Times. There's Giuliana, a "quadrilingual biologist-campaigner-filmmaker" whose forearms "writhe with fungi tattoos", and César, who looks like a warrior priest from "Star Wars" and apparently has a "slate-cleaving intelligence". At their urging, Macfarlane does odd things, such as tell "mushrooms it is nice to meet them". But when he "gets off the crystal unicorn and gets back in the actual water, the book is a delight". As ever, his prose is sumptuous – "you could gorge yourself on his metaphors and similes" – and there is plenty of gripping storytelling, including a masterful account of a trip down a white-water river in Quebec that goes "epically wrong".

Striving to see rivers as living beings, Macfarlane grants them human pronouns, said Blake Morrison in The Guardian. Instead of "which" or "that", he explains, "I prefer to speak of rivers who flow." But, at times, "doubts creep in", such as when Macfarlane wonders if granting rivers selfhood is indulging "in a kind of cosplay animism".

"Is a River Alive?" is at its best when he abandons such musings, and concentrates on describing nature and the threats that besiege these landscapes, said Guy Stagg in Literary Review. The real achievement of this "stirring" book is to make readers share his "sense of awe".

Investigative journalist who exposed the grooming scandal

When Elon Musk seized on the issue of child-grooming gangs earlier this year, he claimed that the "mainstream media" had covered it up, said Janice Turner in The Times. It was nonsense. Plenty of people had, of course, turned a blind eye for years to the fact that, in towns across England, girls, some as young as 11, were being abused by groups of men of mainly Pakistani heritage, who plied them with alcohol and drugs and then touted them around, to be gang-raped on dirty mattresses in unused flats and rooms above shops. Police thought these girls, most of whom were white and in care, were not worth the paperwork, let alone the community tensions an inquiry would cause; social workers often regarded them as little more than "slags"; local Labour councillors didn't want to know. But the scandal was exposed – thanks to the persistence, and courage, of one journalist in particular.

Andrew Norfolk, who has died aged 60, listened to the girls' distressing stories, embarked on a years-long investigation, in the face of abuse, intimidation and official obstruction, and published his findings "without sensationalism" in The Times from 2011 to 2013. He was not the first person to have raised the alarm – some brave women, including the Labour MP Ann Cryer, had done so earlier, and been denounced as racists and warned that they were playing into the hands of the far right. But when Jayne Senior, a youth-worker-turned-whistleblower in Rotherham, started ringing around the papers, Norfolk was the only mainstream journalist who agreed to pursue this incendiary story. He was the man who "ran into the fire while others fled".

The son of a headteacher, Norfolk grew up in Kent and Yorkshire, and started work on a local paper after leaving Durham University. His investigation into corruption in Doncaster Council won him his job at The Times. He had been too self-effacing to apply himself, however; his brother had sent in his CV. In 2003, Norfolk heard Cryer's warnings about grooming gangs in Keighley; later, he started to see a pattern of similar behaviour in other towns. He identified 17 such cases. But when he put his findings to officials, he met a wall of silence.

His first exposé was published in 2011. He was ordered by his editor to keep digging, and more followed. In Rotherham, he heard of a case in which police had arrived at a flat at 2.30am. They found seven men with a 13-year-old girl who was naked and drunk. They arrested her. None of the men were even questioned. With Senior's help, he was able to show that gangs had been operating with "virtual impunity" in the town. Finally, the local council – having repeatedly dismissed Norfolk's findings – agreed to order an independent inquiry. Professor Alexis Jay found that 1,400 girls had been abused in Rotherham since 1997, many of them trafficked to other cities, too. "This story is an example of why newspapers matter," Norfolk said. "When all else failed, a very brave person placed their trust in journalism." He was aware that the gangs had not all been stamped out, but he hoped, he said, that "some children… are safer as a result".