We take a look at how critics have been reacting to this world premiere of David Eldridge’s play.
WhatsOnStage: **** “The play is full of inchoate longing and real pain. For anyone who has lost someone too young, it is both truthful and hard to watch. That’s partly because Owen and Reeves give performances of such honesty that the characters cease to be imagined and become real, every flicker of their shifting emotion beautifully recognised, from the spasms of pain that pass across his face as he hobbles around the room to the joy in her eyes as she dances to a song from her youth.”
Camden New Journal: “Eldridge’s writing is tender, sometimes profound, and he deftly weaves humour into the heartache.”
West End Best Friend: **** “End is a quietly powerful piece about love at its most ordinary and hence at its most profound. It is about the unbearable weight of loss, and how we find our way through it in conversation, in compromise and in humour. This is a truly human story told without spectacle, glamour or glitz, and this is why it is so pure, relatable and affecting. A sharp, moving reminder that life’s biggest and important moments may just happen in the smallest and most ordinary of rooms.”
London Theatre.co.uk: **** “Together, they create such intimacy that you almost have to look away. Julie quietly rubbing moisturiser into Alfie’s hands and feet speaks volumes about their lifetime together, and how she is choosing to face this final challenge with him. Eldridge could do with leaving more space for such exchanges – there are a few too many florid speeches and over-worked metaphors – but this is tender, compassionate drama.”
Time Out: *** “Still, I appreciated Eldridge’s ideas, even if there were too many of them. Owen and Reeves put in lovely performances as loving but complicated people forced into unfamiliar new terrain by the direst of circumstances. The acid house angle is maybe pushed a bit hard, but it’s a fun flavour to throw in.”
The Standard: **** “O’Riordan’s production depends on the chemistry of Reeves and Owen. The flashes of pique, exasperation and anger between Julie and Alf are underpinned by a mature and demonstrative affection. End features one of the more tender and delicate love scenes I’ve seen on stage, and also a gorgeous moment when Julie briefly loses herself in a club banger that Alf puts on the stereo, while searching for something to play at the funeral he claims he doesn’t want.”
The Arts Desk: **** “Eldridge writes good dialogue and his account of Alfie and Julie’s awkward musings on mortality, and the profound emotional echoes of this subject, is compelling and moving even if you miss the drama of a full-blown showdown.”
British Theatre Guide: “The show is a well-performed, gentle glimpse of two believable characters having a ninety-five-minute conversation mulling over the implications of Alfie’s plans for his approaching death.”
The Reviews Hub: **** “Death is the great leveller, not just something that happens to the comfortable middle-class, although both actors’ accents hint that their characters were once more traditionally working-class. Just a black box with a sofa would have been enough to showcase the talents of Owen and Reeves. And End would be just as moving.”
The Stage: *** “Gripping performances from Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves animate this slow-moving sketch of a loving relationship reaching its last days.”
Broadway World: *** “Rachel O’Riordan’s understated direction allows Owen and Saskia Reeves to shape the rhythm. Reeves is the ballast, her Julie is gracefully mature where Alfie is petulant. She carries the emotional labour of caring for a dying man. Their exchanges have a naturalism that feels lived-in and quietly bruising.”
The Telegraph: **** “David Eldridge brings his perceptive trilogy, which traces the course of a relationship, to a poignant End.”
London Theatre 1: **** “The narrative structure might be too contrived for some: surely, if they’ve been together for this long, they must be able to see right through one another without the sort of jaw-dropping revelations that only tend to come to light in plays where characters who haven’t had a proper conversation in years or even decades are suddenly forced, one way or another, to spend an extended period of time together. For me, this ultimately didn’t matter, and I’d much rather have a storyline that is easy to follow than an impenetrable one any day of the week.”
The Upcoming: *** “End is a worthy finale to David Eldridge’s trilogy. It’s dark and it’s sad, representing life well.”
End continues to play at the National Theatre until the 17th January 2026.