When Clive Owen shuffles onto the stage of the National Theatre's Dorfman Theatre leaning on a cane, the silence isn’t just audience restraint—it’s the weight of a life slowing down. That moment, just minutes into EndLondon, sets the tone for a play that doesn’t shout about death. It whispers it. And in that whisper, it finds everything. David Eldridge’s End, which opened on November 15, 2025, is the final act of his acclaimed trilogy, following Beginning (2017) and Middle (2022). This time, the setting isn’t an Essex kitchen. It’s a cluttered, record-strewn north London home, where Saskia Reeves and Owen’s characters, Julie and Alfie, are learning how to live while dying.
A Love Story in Real Time, Under a Shadow
End unfolds in real time, no cuts, no intermission. Just two people, a kitchen, and the quiet horror of a diagnosis that doesn’t need to be named. Alfie, once a wild acid house DJ whose beats once shook underground clubs, now struggles to lift a teacup. Julie, a successful crime novelist who only started writing after 40, has scribbled their shared gravestone inscription—Shakespearean, elegant, devastating. Their conversations leap from what music to play at his funeral (“A disco ball? Really?”) to whether she’ll ever love again after he’s gone. It’s messy. It’s awkward. It’s real.Director Rachel O'Riordan and designer Gary McCann built a space that feels lived-in: minimalist furniture drowned in vinyl records, framed concert posters, mismatched mugs. One moment, Julie rubs moisturizer into Alfie’s hands—no words, just touch. That’s the whole play in a gesture. The kind of intimacy only decades of shared silence can create.
Performances That Don’t Just Move You—They Haunt You
It’s hard to imagine anyone else in these roles. Owen, rumpled and radiant, doesn’t play a man dying. He plays a man who still wants to dance, still wants to argue about music, still wants to be funny—even when his body won’t cooperate. He finds humor in the absurd: “I don’t want ‘Staying Alive’ at my funeral. But… maybe with a disco ball?” The line lands like a punch to the gut. You laugh. Then you don’t breathe for ten seconds.
Reeves is even more extraordinary. Her Julie isn’t a saint. She’s angry. She’s resentful. She’s terrified. And yes, she’s quietly wondering if this pain might fuel her next novel. “You think I’m using this?” she snaps at one point. “Maybe I am. But I’m not pretending it’s not happening.” The performance cycles through grief’s stages not in neat chapters, but in jagged, overlapping bursts. One minute she’s planning his funeral playlist; the next, she’s screaming into a pillow. London Theatre called it “an extraordinary display of emotional agility.” They weren’t exaggerating.
Structural Flaws, Emotional Truth
Not everyone’s sold on the structure. The Independent noted the play “veers off” near the end, with revelations arriving too fast—like a sudden confession about an old affair or Julie’s buried resentment about Alfie’s mother. Show Score’s aggregated reviews echoed this: “I think the play would have benefitted from being spread over days, not minutes.” There’s a sense that Eldridge, trying to cram a lifetime’s worth of unspoken words into one evening, overloads the dialogue.
But here’s the twist: maybe that’s the point. When you’re facing death, time doesn’t stretch. It fractures. Memories crash into plans. Jokes land like bombs. The play’s uneven rhythm mirrors how grief actually feels—not a linear arc, but a series of jolts, silences, and sudden, unasked-for tears. Even the critics who found it “slight” admitted it was “astonishingly realised.”
A Trilogy’s Quiet Farewell
For those who followed Eldridge’s journey from Beginning to Middle to End, this isn’t just a play. It’s a farewell. Rufus Norris, the National Theatre’s former artistic director, steps down after this production. And the trilogy itself—three plays about love at different life stages—feels like a bookend to his tenure. The first was about young love in Essex, the second about its unraveling, and now this: two people who’ve built a life, a home, a legacy, and now must let go.
What’s haunting isn’t the cancer. It’s the mundane. The way Julie still sets two places at the table. The way Alfie still hums old rave tunes under his breath. The way they both avoid saying “I love you”—not because they don’t, but because they’ve said it so many times before, in so many ways, that the words have become part of the air they breathe.
What Comes After?
Julie, we’re told, likely has decades ahead. Alfie does not. That imbalance isn’t just tragic—it’s the truth of so many relationships. Who gets to keep living? Who gets to be remembered? And how do you hold someone’s hand when you know you’ll be the one left holding it?
There’s no grand resolution. No healing monologue. Just Julie, standing alone in the kitchen, staring at the last record on the turntable. The music stops. The silence returns. And the audience? We don’t clap right away. We just sit. Because some endings don’t need applause. They need stillness.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does 'End' connect to David Eldridge's previous plays, 'Beginning' and 'Middle'?
'End' is the final chapter in Eldridge’s real-time trilogy, each play exploring love at a different life stage. 'Beginning' (2017) followed a young Essex couple’s first date; 'Middle' (2022) showed their marriage unraveling. 'End' brings them forward—now older, relocated to north London, and facing terminal illness. The trilogy traces not just romantic evolution, but how class, music, and geography shape relationships across decades.
Why is the setting in north London significant?
The move from Essex to north London symbolizes the characters’ artistic reinvention and generational shift. Alfie’s acid house past and Julie’s late-blooming literary career reflect a cultural transition—from 1990s rave culture to today’s indie-art scene. The cluttered, bohemian home contrasts with the more working-class Essex settings of earlier plays, showing how identity evolves with place.
What makes Clive Owen’s performance stand out?
Owen avoids melodrama. He doesn’t play a victim—he plays a man who still wants to be seen as whole. His physicality—limping, fumbling with objects, pausing mid-sentence—isn’t just acting. It’s embodiment. The moment he considers a disco ball at his funeral reveals his stubborn humor, making his vulnerability more devastating. Critics called it “visceral,” “rumpled good form,” and “a masterclass in restraint.”
Is Julie’s character portrayed as selfish for considering her next novel?
Not selfish—human. The play doesn’t judge Julie for wondering if this pain can fuel her writing. It’s a quiet, terrifying truth: artists process trauma through their work. Her struggle isn’t about using Alfie’s illness—it’s about surviving it without losing herself. The fact that she writes their gravestone quote in Shakespearean verse shows she’s trying to find beauty, even in the darkest chapter.
Why did critics say the play’s structure felt uneven?
Some reviewers felt the play crammed too many revelations into one evening—infidelity, parental resentment, funeral plans—all unfolding in rapid succession. But others argue this mirrors real grief: it doesn’t arrive in neat waves. It hits in bursts. The structure’s “faltering” quality may be intentional, reflecting how terminal illness disrupts time, logic, and emotional pacing.
Is this play a fitting farewell to Rufus Norris’s tenure at the National Theatre?
Absolutely. Norris championed intimate, character-driven stories, and End embodies that ethos. A quiet, two-person play about mortality, made with immense care, closing a trilogy that spanned nearly a decade—it’s the kind of thoughtful, emotionally resonant work Norris built his legacy on. No spectacle. Just truth. And sometimes, that’s the most powerful farewell of all.