Journey's End (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Walters, Emily Curtis (2016). "Between entertainment and elegy: the unexpected success of R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End (1928)". Journal of British Studies. 55 (2): 344–73. doi: 10.1017/jbr.2016.3. Sherriff had trouble getting Journey's End produced in the West End, writing that "Every management in London had turned the play down. They said people didn't want war plays [...] 'How can I put on a play with no leading lady?' one [theatre manager] had asked complainingly." [1] Sherriff used No Leading Lady as the title of his autobiography, published in 1968. Second Lieutenant Raleigh, a wide-eyed young man, joins the company after requesting to be stationed near Captain Stanhope. Stanhope (whom he calls by the familiar name Dennis) is dating his sister Madge. He figures that Stanhope will be happy to see a familiar face; instead, he’s enraged that Raleigh would intrude on his life. But the real reason for his objection is that he fears Raleigh will write to his sister that her fiancé is becoming an alcoholic. Raleigh can’t believe what the last three years of military service have done to the previously kind and light-hearted Stanhope. Journey’s End is an extremely claustrophobic play, set in the trenches in March 1918 as the war is drawing to a close. It tells the story of a group of officers and their commander over a course of three days. Apparently R.C Sherriff intended the play to be called ‘Suspense’ or ‘Waiting’ and, I have to say, they both would have been perfect titles for this.

In September 2018 a production was staged by Fintry Amateur Dramatic Society (FADS), in "The Studio", a converted barn outside Killearn, Stirling. [17] Adaptations [ edit ] Film [ edit ]Trotter, Stanhope, and Hibbert drink and talk about women. They all appear to be enjoying themselves until Hibbert is annoyed when Stanhope tells him to go to bed, and he tells Stanhope to go to bed instead, then Stanhope suddenly becomes angry and begins to shout at Hibbert, and tells him to clear off and get out. I have just put down this classic WWI play by R.C. Sherriff, and I swear that for all intents and purposes I'm still in that officers' dug-out in Flanders while the noise and smoke of a concentrated enemy bombardment steadily increase in intensity. And it occurs to me that my intention of writing any sort of review is presumptuous at best. How can I be qualified to comment on life in the trenches, or know for sure what it must have been like to lead a daytime raid into no-man's-land with a stiff upper lip and a tot of rum sloshing around in my fear-shrunken belly and nothing in the world more certain than the knowledge that enemy machine-gun fire is waiting ahead to mow me down? The answer is simple -- I'm not and I can't. After recovering from his wounds, Sherriff worked as an insurance adjuster from 1918 to 1928 at Sun Insurance Company, London. [9] The officers only get to sleep in short stints of two to three hours. On waking up, they have their tea and then immediately head for the trenches for duty. The cook too sleeps in his dugout and is always being called by one officer or another to serve breakfast, lunch or dinner or tea with jam

But I love the theatre and I’ve wanted to read Journey’s End for a while now because I’ve heard it was beautiful and tragic. And they are my favourite adjectives when it comes to literature. All soldiers and officers had to wear masks for protection from the deadly gas called Phosgene which was released into the atmosphere by the Germans. The following extract shows the details regarding it: The play has been filmed several times, and a new version has just appeared. I look forward to it, as well as hoping to see Journey’s End on stage at some point. Sherriff, Robert Cedric (1962). The Wells of St. Mary's. Hutchinson Library Services. ISBN 0091174406. OCLC 7185868. Act three opens with Osborne asking Stanhope to send all of his materials to his wife. The two reminisce about life in England. Raleigh survives the mission, but Osborne does not. The raid successfully captures a German. When the higher commands ask Stanhope how the raid went, it’s clear that they don’t care if men died but if they captured a German who they can milk for information.One of my favourite play writes, I tend to stay away from WW1 fictional content as I don't believe that something so horrific can be explained through fiction. WW1 fiction is always either one of two things: extremely unrealistic but fun to read or extremely unrealistic to the point where you are debating wether the Great War actually taught people anything. At no point do we leave the dugout, not even to enter the war's notorious trenches per se, yet sounds of the war are heard throughout every scene. It's a claustrophobic, intense situation and story. Apparently Sherriff originally wanted to title it Suspense or Waiting, which are actually better titles in some ways. Other plays of the period dealing with the war tended to be judged by the standard of Journey's End. [21] The play and its characters also influenced other writers. In 1930, Noël Coward briefly played the role of Stanhope while on tour in the Far East. He did not consider his performance successful, writing afterwards that his audience "politely watched me take a fine part in a fine play and throw it into the alley." [22] However, he was "strongly affected by the poignancy of the play itself", and was inspired to write Post-Mortem, his own "angry little vilification of war", shortly afterwards. [23] Sherriff wrote his first play to help Kingston Rowing Club raise money to buy a new boat. [13] His seventh play, Journey's End, was written in 1928 and published in 1929 and was based on his experiences in the war. [3] It was given a single Sunday performance, on 9 December 1928, by the Incorporated Stage Society at the Apollo Theatre, directed by James Whale and with the 21-year-old Laurence Olivier in the lead role. [14] In the audience was Maurice Browne who produced it at the Savoy Theatre where it was performed for two years from 1929. [15] The play was hugely successful and there was wide press coverage which reveals how audience responses provoked by this play shaped understanding of the First World War in the interwar years. [16] Novelist [ edit ]