Ocean at the End of the Lane

From the imagination of Neil Gaiman, best-selling author of Good Omens, Coraline and The Sandman, the National Theatre’s smash-hit production The Ocean at the End of the Lane returns to the West End this October for seven weeks only.

Garnering more than 60 five-star reviews, this spectacular and thrilling theatrical event is a tour de force of magic and storytelling. Adapted by Joel Horwood and directed by Katy Rudd, The Ocean at the End of the Lane takes audiences on an epic journey to a childhood once forgotten.

The story is simple: a man (Nicolas Tennant) revisits the scene of his first love and the aftermath of his mother’s death, where he finds a family on the edge. His dad (Tennant again, swapping melancholy for exasperation) burns the toast, while his younger self squabbles comically with his sister in the bedroom they are forced to share because their reduced circumstances demand a lodger, who promptly kills himself in the family car. Cue his introduction to a witchy dynasty of farming women. The real witch, however, has infiltrated the family, turning every home comfort into an instrument of torture.

The beauty of Katy Rudd’s production is the way that it manipulates theatre space into a simulacrum of a child’s imagination: doors menacingly multiply, windows open on to enchanted forests, and a pool of spotlight becomes a small but impregnable safe space, on the condition (which can never be taken for granted) that the child is brave and smart enough to resist demons he doesn’t yet recognise.

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