After The End

Dennis Kelly’s After The End places its two protagonists in a bunker underground after a devastating blast. The origin of the explosion is unknown and soon becomes unimportant as Mark (Jonathan Dunn) and Louise (Nicola Daley) being to fight for their sanity and eventually their lives.

Neil Haynes' set is suitably impressive, a cracked-open ruin that keeps the action visible and constrained. Combine this with a disorientating use of strobe and intimidating performances from both leads and it’s not long before The Citizen’s Circle Studio begins to feel far smaller than it actually is.

Director Amanda Gaughan has created a nightmarish power-struggle that bypasses the usual political posturing to become something far more interesting. A genuine ‘edge-of-your-seat’ thriller. What raises this beyond the level of your average Hollywood-fare is that both cast and director allow for moments of warmth and humour. Jonathan Dunn’s performance manages to be at once child-like and psychotic while Nicola Daley creates a fully rounded and note-perfect performance that raises her character above the role of your atypical ‘female-victim’. When the play finally does dissolve into the inevitable parade of ‘shocking’ depravity it is empathy that is felt, not titillation.

After The End is an immersive and often frightening production that manages to be at once thought-provoking and genuinely entertaining; mixing the cerebral with the visceral to create an hour and a half of theatre takes on its cinematic brethren and comes out on top.