End (2025 production): Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves play a couple at a point of crisis, looking back on their life
Year: 2025
Certificate: 15
Watch now on National Theatre At Home
The meaning of the title shifts during David Eldridge's play, the third in his trilogy about love and relationships - the first two being the helpfully titled Beginning and Middle. Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves are Alfie and Julie, a couple who are at the end of the road because Alfie has cancer and doesn't want to endure more chemotherapy. So that's the end we're talking about here - or is it?
Secrets about their relationship emerge over the course of the play, which runs to 92 minutes without an interval and unfolds in real-time. It's essentially a dissection of their relationship in the lead-up to a visit from their daughter and it's a lot to sustain, both for the actors, who are the only on-stage characters, and for the plausibility of the dialogue.
Reeves in particular is superb, especially in the moments when Julie is finding ways to let out the rage she's suppressed over the years. As a drama about longevity in a relationship it's acutely well-executed, and all the stories about the couple's love of raving - Alfie was once a big time dance DJ - flesh out their past as we watch them on stage. Expect points of clunkiness because of how much is crammed into the script, but also expect to want to deliver a round of applause from your sofa at the play's end for what it gives us as a whole. (92 minutes)
