Eclipse by John Morton

Eclipse by John Morton

'It's hard to imagine things getting back to normal after this though. I don't suppose they do from now on, not really.' 

In the kitchen of an old Devon rectory, the daughter who stayed and the son who moved away make conversation with their current and former partners, the milkman, the postman, the care workers. They talk about the weather, the roads, the toaster, the bins. About anything except the simmering tensions between them, as their father lies mortally ill in the next room.

Until the unspoken emotions and conflicts of years boil over.

Eclipse is a painfully funny, acute and delicate play about our struggle to communicate, in the face of life and of death – and our infinite capacity for drinking tea. It was first performed in the Minerva Theatre at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2026, written and directed by John Morton.

'Gosh, this is good.. like a more modest, more English Chekhov, these crisply funny, mountingly tender two hours offer not much happening and everything happening... Morton knows that a line like "no, yeah, no" can speak volumes in the right context... he nails it here... perfectly pitched between the tender and the absurd'

John Morton's award-winning TV series include People Like Us (based on his award-winning radio series of the same name), Twenty Twelve, W1A and Twenty Twenty Six. Eclipse is his first stage play.