A group of strangers find themselves in a bureaucratic waiting room between life and death. Encouraged by enigmatic officials, they must sift through their past lives to choose their forever.

Adapted from Hirokazu Kore-eda's award-winning film, After Life is a surreal and powerfully human look at the way we view our lives, and a haunting meditation on what it is to live – and to die.

Written by Jack Thorne (Let the Right One In, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and for television, Help, Shameless, Skins, and This is England) After Life was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in June 2021.

Reviews of the Play

'A compelling vision of eternity' The Times

'A powerful show with subtlety and tenderness' The i

'A great idea, charmingly done... Although After Life is based on a film, its best parts are pure theatre' Guardian

'Miraculous... an absolutely superb play... I was incredibly moved by it... a properly transcendent piece of theatre' Time Out 

EDI Assessment

In line with our EDI policy, we undertake an EDI impact assessment of all our artistic programming. ‘After Life’ has no specific diversity message within its narrative. The play can be cast with complete neutrality on race/ethnicity. Parts of its story lend themselves to gender, ethnicity and age specificity in certain roles but this could be open to artistic judgement permitting maximum flexibility to achieve the most diverse cast possible.