Clive Owen as Alfie and Saskia Reeves as Julie
National Theatre, London, December 2025
Photo by Marc Brenner
106 – End by David Eldridge
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David Eldridge’s new play End is the final instalment of what David has described as a “triptych for the theatre”, following Beginning in 2017, and Middle in 2022. Each of the plays in the series presents a snapshot of a couple at a particular time of life: Beginning shows us a moment when a couple first meet; in Middle the couple are reviewing their marriage and lives in middle-age; and now in End we meet a couple who are facing the premature end of their life together. The play is not only an emotionally painful meditation on mortality, but also a testament to the life affirming power of love.
The three plays are not in fact written as sequels – it is a different couple in each play. What they do have in common is their form – all consisting of a two-handed conversation played out in real time – as well as their recurring themes – the need for, and fear of, love; how couples maintain relationships as the years go by; how our class origins define our choices and sense of identity; and finally how we navigate the reality of the finite time we have to live.
As we record this episode End is playing at the National Theatre in London, with Saskia Reeves and Clive Owen as the couple. I was privileged to talk with David about Beginning way back in episode 11 of the podcast, and then Middle in episode 47, so I am delighted to be able complete the trilogy by welcoming David back to talk about End.
David Eldridge
In addition to the trilogy comprising Beginning (2017), Middle (2022) and End (2025), David Eldridge’s plays include: Under a Blue Sky, Festen, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness, Market Boy, In Basildon, and The Knot of the Heart, as well as adaptations of Ibsen and Strindberg, including The Wild Duck and Miss Julie. David’s most recent play is his adaptation of John Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which premiered at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester in 2024, before transferring to the Soho Place in London’s West End in 2025.
David is also a lecturer in the Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London.
David recommended My Mother’s Funeral: The Show by Kelly Jones.
Photo by Johan Persson
113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘gangster spectacle’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is both an exuberant and funny piece of theatre, and a chillingly topical political satire. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui. The play is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was playing in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss as the title character.
I am delighted to be joined by both the show’s translator, playwright Stephen Sharkey, and by Brecht scholar, Professor Tom Kuhn, to guide us through Brecht’s political parody.
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