Everything you need to know about 'Beginning' and 'Middle' before seeing 'End'
David Eldridge completes his trilogy of two-hander plays with this National Theatre production starring Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves.
Summary
- David Eldridge completes his trilogy of relationship plays with End at the National Theatre
- End stars Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves as a couple reckoning with issues in later life
- Eldridge's previous plays Beginning and Middle give clues to what to expect from his latest work
Rufus Norris’s tenure as artistic director of the National Theatre officially finishes with his final piece of programming – and, very appropriately, it’s a play called End. David Eldridge’s two-hander is also the closing work in his trilogy, which began at the National in 2017 with Beginning and continued in 2022 with Middle.
End features two stars of stage and screen as Alfie and Julie, a couple whose love story has featured music, laughter and heartache, and who are now preparing to write their ending. The duo are played by Clive Owen (Closer, Gosford Park) and Saskia Reeves (Slow Horses, Wolf Hall).
Ahead of your trip to End, get to know the previous plays in Eldridge’s trilogy, from the dynamics between the characters and the actors who have appeared in them to the kinds of themes and ideas which might hint at what we can expect in End.
Book End tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk
Beginning
Eldridge’s 2017 play is a two-hander centring on Laura and Danny. It’s begins at 2am, following Laura’s housewarming party at her new London flat, and all the guests have gone apart from Danny, who came as someone’s plus-one. Over a real-time 100 minutes, we watch as this tipsy pair of near-strangers circle one another.
There’s definitely an attraction, along with some very funny awkwardness and culture-clash comedy (Danny is an Essex boy, Laura a metropolitan hotshot). The pair gradually bond over their loneliness and sense of disconnection – plus a shared love of Strictly Come Dancing and fish finger sandwiches.
The play features brilliant slapstick, like Danny accidentally corking a bottle of wine and Laura attempting seduction through an excruciatingly long dance. But it’s also full of kindness and heart, emotional depth and vulnerability, as the characters open up to one another. Laura, who is 38, longs for a child; Danny is divorced and estranged from his young daughter.
Beginning originally starred Sam Troughton and Justine Mitchell, directed by Polly Findlay, with a naturalistic design by Fly Davis. It was critically acclaimed, with LondonTheatre.co.uk’s reviewer writing “Eldridge’s play stings with suppressed emotions… and packs a lot into a short time. It’s acted with utter conviction and emotional truth.”
Middle
As the title suggests, while Beginning focussed on the early days (or hours!) of a budding relationship, Middle instead takes place in the middle of one. The title has a double meaning, too: it’s also a portrait of a couple in middle age.
However, there are plenty of similarities. This 2022 play is another real-time two-hander, and again takes place in the small hours of the morning. Maggie drops a bombshell on husband Gary, telling him “I’m not sure I love you anymore.” She then tries to have a serious discussion about their relationship, and he desperately attempts to avoid it.
There are plenty of echoes of Beginning here. Gary and Maggie have a similar dynamic: he’s a working-class boy made good, now making money in the City, while she was university educated. The play also mixes emotion with grounded humour, covers themes like love, sex, parenthood, expectations, and how the digital world has shaped ours, and it features another unforgettable dance.
Findlay returned to direct Middle at the National Theatre, with Claire Rushbrook and Daniel Ryan in the cast. LondonTheatre.co.uk’s reviewer praised the actors’ “great commitment”, particularly in Maggie’s “gorgeous monologue about the childhood roots of her discontent”, and the physical comedy – like Gary consulting his phone after injuring his hand, “a brilliant comment on our reliance on Dr Internet”.
What to expect from End
Eldridge is wrapping up his trilogy with a play that definitely follows in the footsteps of Beginning and Middle. It’s another two-hander, featuring a man and a woman in a relationship, and it seems likely to explore some of those recurring themes around love, heartache, and reflections on what you want from life.
There is also mention of music in the play’s summary, so we may get another incredible (in every sense) dance sequence. It seems likely too that Eldridge will again mix comedy with deeper themes – such as, in the case of End, illness and grief, and perhaps also further exploration of class, parenthood, desire, and digital versus the real world.
We have another fantastic double act taking on these roles: Clive Owen as Alfie and Saskia Reeves as Julie. Owen last appeared on stage in The Night of the Iguana in the West End in 2019, while Reeves last tread the boards the previous year, in Richard II at the Almeida Theatre.
End is directed by Lyric Hammersmith’s artistic director Rachel O’Riordan, whose acclaimed productions include Romeo and Julie, Iphigenia in Splott, Ghosts, and Our Country’s Good. It’s designed by Gary McCann, whose work at the National includes The Pitmen Painters.
This should be a funny, poignant and special end to Eldridge’s trilogy – and to Norris’s incredible time at the National Theatre.
Book End tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk
Main photo credit: End (courtesy of the production). Inset: Beginning, Middle, Saskia Reeves and Clive Owen (photos by Johan Persson, photos courtesy of the production)
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