Review: End (Dorfman Theatre)

Review by Lily Melhuish

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Every story needs a Beginning, a Middle, and inevitably, an End: David Eldridge’s latest play to complete his trilogy. The previous installments, also having opened at the National Theatre in 2017 and 2022 respectively, have explored love and relationships, and End continues these sentiments with a raw, tender rumination on mortality and partnership. This final chapter asks the hardest question of all: how do you say goodbye for the last time?

Set in real time over an hour and forty minutes, the play unfolds in the early hours of June 19th, 2016, inside a plush Highgate home. Alfie and Julie, a couple of over thirty years, await their daughter’s visit later that day. But the real conversation, the one neither wants to have, cannot wait. Alfie has been living with cancer for five years, and now he’s dropped the bombshell: he no longer wants treatment. Julie, his partner in everything but name, wants him to keep fighting. What follows is a deeply human tug-of-war between autonomy and love, between acceptance and denial.

Eldridge’s writing captures the intimacy of a couple who have shared every corner of life: summers in Ibiza, professional highs and lows, and the joys of raising a child through it all. They’re working-class Essex kids turned North London creatives; Julie’s a successful crime novelist, and Alfie’s a touring DJ whose passion for music pulses through the play. Their house, rendered in Gary McCann’s beautifully detailed set, is a character in itself: shelves crammed with books and vinyl, a smiley-face clock (a twee nod to acid house), and CeCe Rogers’ Someday vibrating through the speakers. It’s eclectic, and unmistakably theirs, a space brimming with history, now shadowed by the inevitability of loss.

The dialogue oscillates between naturalistic banter and moments of lyrical introspection. At times, Alfie’s monologues lean philosophical, almost poetic, a slight tonal clash against the realism of the setting. But Rachel O’Riordan’s direction smooths these transitions with care, letting silences speak as loudly as words. There’s a restless energy in the staging: Alfie and Julie rarely stay still, as if movement could stave off the ticking clock. Even Julie’s repeated attempts to make a cup tea become a poignant motif of British deflection, a desperate attempt to dilute tension with routine.

Their trip down memory lane exposes cracks in the relationship that have long been papered over. Communication has never been their strong suit, yet their recollections align perfectly. They don’t correct or contradict each other; they’ve been in each other’s pockets since day one; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. They may not be legally married, but they’ve honoured the sanctity of that union more than most spouses. The sheer volume of anecdotes and decisions crammed into this single morning makes the play seem more like a representation, a condensed version of conversations that would normally stretch over weeks or months.

Clive Owen delivers a performance of striking vulnerability. His towering frame seems to shrink under the weight of illness; every shift of his crutch, every grimace when Julie’s back is turned, reminds us of the physical and emotional toll. He’s the headliner whose set is winding down, every movement a reminder that the encore is out of reach. Saskia Reeves matches him with gentle strength and cheeky warmth, flitting between calling Alfie “babe” or “d***head”, but always said with complete affection no matter where she lands. Julie spends much of the first hour absorbing Alfie’s reflections, but when her own confessions surface, they land with devastating force. If Alfie feels fully realised, his love of music, his structural beliefs, Julie occasionally wavers, her principles bending under the strain of impossible choices. Yet Reeves infuses her contradictions with authenticity; grief is rarely tidy.

Despite the gravity of its subject, the play finds room for humour and tenderness. Alfie’s musings on his funeral playlist, “You’ve got to finish your set with a banger”, spark laughter even as they break your heart. A scene where Julie dances to Frankie Knuckles’ Your Love is pure magic: for a fleeting moment, they’re young again, living in the beat, oblivious to the countdown.

As the title clearly states, End is a story about one’s final moments: the last cup of tea, the last football match, the last kiss. It asks whether dignity at the end is possible, and whether love can ever be enough to override choice. “Everything is for the last time now,” Alfie says, a line that lingers long after the lights fade. Julie counters with her own plea: “How can it be cruel, wanting you to live?” Between these poles lies the unbearable truth: some endings are beyond negotiation.

For all its uneven rhythms, Eldridge’s play is deeply moving. A portrait of a life well-lived and well-loved, flicking through the spectrum of emotions like a DJ changing tracks. It’s sentimental without slipping into schmaltz, grounded in cultural touchstones from West Ham to the 2012 Olympics, yet universal in its ache. End doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, it leaves us with questions that hum like a bassline: What matters most, living in the moment or standing the test of time? And is there such a thing as a happy ending, when one must say goodbye?

End plays at the Dorfman Theatre, National Theatre until January 16th

For tickets and information visit https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/end/

Photos by Marc Brenner