End Times
By David Ireland. Directed by Katie Posner. A Gate Theatre and Paines Plough Co-Production.
- Dates
- Tuesday 16 February to Saturday 20 March Previews from Thursday 11 February
- Show Times
- Evening shows Monday to Saturday: 7:30pm Saturday matinees: 2pm
- Duration
- Approx. 90min (No interval)
- Audience Advisory
- Content warning: End Times contains dark comedy, strong language, and sensitive adult themes, including explicit discussions of mental health crises, self-harm, trauma, anti-Semitism, extremist politics, and racism. Age recommendation: 16+
The Gate Theatre is thrilled to announce a major new co-production with the renowned new writing theatre company, Paines Plough.
End Times is a darkly comic, and deeply humane new play by award-winning playwright David Ireland (Ulster American, The Fifth Step and Cyprus Avenue).
Directed by Paines Plough’s Joint Artistic Director Katie Posner (Consumed, After Party, Strategic Love Play), End Times explores modern identity, inherited trauma, political paranoia, and the fragility of human connection in an increasingly fractured world.
GLEN: If you could just get out of this bubble you’re in-
MARK: You’re in a bubble too!
GLEN: Well maybe I am in a bubble but my bubble’s better than your bubble!
End Times follows television star Glen Doherty, a successful actor from Belfast living in North London, as he prepares for a high-profile BBC podcast interview about his father’s murder during the Troubles. Joined by his young nephew Mark, a fervent Christian fundamentalist visiting from Northern Ireland, and his Jewish wife, Rachel, an actor navigating a career crisis, the stage is set for a low-key family reunion that quickly spirals out of control.
As political tensions, religious fervour, cultural anxieties and personal grievances collide, long-simmering resentments bubble to the surface. When Ruth, our interviewer, finally arrives, the boundaries between public performance and private catastrophes implode.
End Times forces us to confront how geopolitical divides mirror our most intimate personal reckonings, and questions how easy it is to move on from traumatic pasts and places. It is unapologetic, humane and darkly comic.
Company
Creatives
David is a playwright, screenwriter and actor from Belfast.
His first play, What the Animals Say, was produced at Oran Mor, Glasgow in 2011.
He was Playwright-in-Residence at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 2012.
He went on to win the Meyer Whitworth Award in 2012 for his second play, Everything Between Us, produced by Tinderbox Theatre Company in Belfast.
In 2016 Cyprus Avenue, starring Stephen Rea, opened at the Royal Court Theatre, London and the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, before transferring to the Public Theatre, New York. It won The Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best New Play and the James Tait Black Award in 2017.
In 2018, Ulster American was produced at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. It won a Scotsman Fringe First and the Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland for Best New Play. Ulster American was revived by Second Half Productions at Riverside Studios, London in 2023 starring Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis and Louisa Harland.
His other plays include Not Now, Sadie, Yes So I Said Yes, The End of Hope and Can’t Forget About You.
His first TV series, The Lovers, was broadcast on Sky Atlantic in 2023. His new TV series, Cold Water, starring Andrew Lincoln, is currently in production and will be broadcast on ITV in 2025.
The Fifth Step premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival of Scotland in 2024 and enjoyed a celebrated revival @sohoplace, London, in 2025.
As an actor, he is best known for playing Clare’s Dad in Derry Girls.
Katie Posner joined Paines Plough as Joint Artistic Director with Charlotte Bennett in August 2019. For Paines Plough, Katie directed Consumed by Karis Kelly (Women’s Prize for Playwriting winner 2022); the Fringe First winning Strategic Love Play by Miriam Battye; You Bury Me by Ahlam (Women’s Prize for Playwriting winner 2021); Hungry by Chris Bush; Really Big and Really Loud by Phoebe Eclair-Powell; Black Love by Chinonyerem Odimba (Co-Director for Roundabout).
Katie is an experienced and award-winning director. She has worked across a wide variety of productions both overseas and on national tours, including multiple productions with York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre with whom she was Associate Director from 2009 until 2017. Her work encompasses both intimate pieces of new writing and larger-scale community pieces. In 2019, Katie received a UK Theatre Award nomination as Best Director with her production of My Mother Said I Never Should at Theatre by the Lake.
Her productions also include: Shanghai Dolls (Kiln Theatre); Strategic Love Play (Minetta Lane Theatre in New York, Audible/Chase This); Richard, My Richard (Shakespeare North Playhouse/Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds); My Mother Said I Never Should (Theatre by the Lake); Mold Riots (Theatr Clwyd); The Seven Ages Of Patience (Kiln Theatre); Swallows & Amazons (Storyhouse), Babe (Mercury Theatre); Playing Up (NYT); Finding Nana (New Perspectives); Made In India (Tamasha/Belgrade/Pilot); Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes, End Of Desire (York Theatre Royal); The Season Ticket (Northern Stage); A View From Islington North (Out Of Joint); In Fog And Falling Snow (National Railway Museum); Running On The Cracks (Tron Theatre); York Mystery Plays (Museum Gardens York); Blackbird, Ghost Town, Clocking In, A Restless Place (Pilot Theatre).
Paines Plough is a theatre company led by Joint Artistic Directors Charlotte Bennett and Katie Posner. As a touring company dedicated to new writing, they discover, develop and empower writers, sharing their explosive new stories with audiences all over the UK and beyond.
Founded in 1974, they have worked with over 500 playwrights including Sarah Kane, Abi Morgan, Dennis Kelly, Miriam Battye, James Graham, Nathan Bryon, Kae Tempest, Vinay Patel, Mike Bartlett, Chloë Moss and Anna Jordan.
Their plays are nationally discovered and locally heard. Each year, they tour their shows to over 30,000 people – including in their renowned portable touring theatre Roundabout – and they recently worked with 400 writers through their nationwide, multi-year writer development programme, Tour the Writer.
In 2019, they co-founded the Women’s Prize for Playwriting with producer Ellie Keel, with a mission to redress the gender imbalance of writers being produced on national stages. So far, they have co-produced and toured three of the winners to huge acclaim: Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me by Amy Trigg, You Bury Me by Ahlam, and Consumed by Karis Kelly, with the 2025 winner Sapling by Georgina Duncan set to tour to London and Sheffield in 2027.
Booking Information
- Tickets
- Previews: €16.50, €26.50, €31.50, €36.50Monday to Wednesday: €26.50, €41.50, €46.50, €51.50Thursday to Sunday (incl. matinees): €36.50, €46.50, €49.50, €58.50
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