Eclipse

by John Morton

seen at the Minerva Theatre Chichester on 23 May 2026

John Morton directs his own play which receives its world premiere here. The daughter Sarah (Sarah Parish) and son Jonathan (Rupert Penry-Jones) of the terminally ill Edward are at his house on the last day of his life They are afflicted by various types of inadequacy while attempting to deal with their impending loss. Inevitably in such a fraught situation they must also contend with the help or hindrance of others including Sarah's husband Graham (Paul Thornley), Jonathan's former partner Nell (Mariam Haque), and sundry palliative care and medical staff. 

The classic dramatic unities of time, action and place could prove disastrously restrictive when applied to the contemporary world of dizzying mobility and complex inter-relations, but in John Morton's hands they are triumphantly vindicated. There is a cluttered kitchen in an old Devon rectory adjoining a luxuriant garden; with the medical crisis developing the coming and going of the professionals is utterly credible while cleverly marking the passage of time (the care workers are managing day and night shifts); and the decline of the unseen Edward binds together all the behaviour of the characters we see.

Given the formality of the dramatic design what is astonishing about Eclipse is the dialogue, which is expertly suffused with the ordinary hesitations and misdirections of speech so rarely seen on stage. Long habits of dominance, irritation, tactlessness and indecision clash more by what is not said - what is almost unsayable in such highly charged circumstances - than by self-revealing expository set pieces, and the result is utterly compelling. Such speech mannerisms are fiendishly difficult to manage, though Morton has form as his three highly acclaimed TV series Twenty Twelve, W1A, and more recently Twenty Twenty-Six testify. It turns out that what was employed satirically on TV can be equally successful in depicting both festering family dynamics, and professional efficiency, somehow making the difficult experience of confronting, and even witnessing, a death profound without being melodramatic.

Simon Higlett's design is a stunning piece of naturalism, while the cast is uniformly excellent, even the minor roles adding to the ambience and freighted with their own personalities. One of my companions who had worked in palliative care remarked that the characterisations and strategies of the care workers were astonishingly accurate. The gradual move from social comedy to far more sober seriousness was achieved with consummate skill: a fine ensemble doing the playwright-director proud.