Raleigh admits that he requested to be sent to Stanhope's company. Osborne hints to Raleigh that Stanhope will not be the same person he knew from school, as the experiences of war have changed him; however, Raleigh does not seem to understand. Sherriff, R. C. (1929). Journey's End, a Play in Three Acts (Firsted.). New York: Brentano's. OCLC 1490502.

This is a WWI classic play that was not going anywhere, simply because it had no female part. Finally when actor Laurence Olivier took the lead, the play became popular. Private Mason, a servant cook, often forgets about ingredients and key parts of the food that he prepares for the officers. He is really part of the infantry but the company has let him be a part-time cook. Instead of writing a play that is about the combat, Sherriff chose to focus on the men and their feelings. The most striking part was that he could have chosen any group of soldiers on either side of No Man’s Land and still had the same play, the same feelings and the same message. I loved the characters, each and every one of them feeling real to me. Complex Stanhope with his inner conflicts and extremely human fears, the dark humorous banter between Osborne and Mason, Hibbert and his terror, the ever changing relationship between Stanhope and the young Raleigh, the enthusiastic, optimistic officer who becomes more and more disillusioned when he begins the truth and sees what happens to men who are fighting.Curtis, James (1998). James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters. Boston: Faber and Faber. p.71. ISBN 0-571-19285-8. In August 2018 a production was staged to commemorate the end of the First World War at St John's School, Leatherhead, and the Leatherhead Theatre, directed by Graham Pountney. [16] There's tension here, sights and sounds of a terrible war, mixed with moments of friendship, camaraderie and the routines of normal English life. Still, everyone is on edge - some more than others - as they await the inevitable. The original manuscript for the play is part of IWM’s collection and the First World War galleries at IWM London contain many objects connected with the events and themes explored in the play. 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.

The play premiered at the Apollo Theatre in London on 9th December 1928, starring a very young Laurence Olivier as Captain Stanhope. In 2017, it was adapted into a film starring Sam Claflin in the same role. But it’s doubtful whether Sherriff aimed to create a fully fledged pacifist drama. He originally planned to write a novel focusing on the relationship between Stanhope and a new young recruit, James Raleigh (played by Asa Butterfield) – a school friend who loves him. It’s an intense relationship which made it onto the stage and is symptomatic of how, throughout the play, it’s the interactions between the soldiers that primarily interest Sherriff.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] i would just like to know what happens afterwards. does Stanhope quit drinking and go home? do they all just die?

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. The three-act play has themes of courage, innocence, human vanity, and mortality. The captain of this company and the protagonist of the play is named Dennis Stanhope. During the Second World War, productions were staged by members of the Royal Natal Carbineers at El Khatatba, Egypt (January 1944); and by British prisoners in Changi Prison, Singapore (February 1943); at Tamarkan, Thailand, a Japanese labour camp on the Burma Railway (July 1943); in Stalag 344, near Lamsdorf, Germany (July 1944); and in Campo P.G. 75, near Bari, Italy. [14] 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.

Journey's End opened as a semi-staged production running for two nights at the Apollo Theatre. [1] It starred Laurence Olivier, then only 21, offered the role of Stanhope by the then equally unknown director James Whale. [1] Under a new producer, Maurice Browne, the play soon transferred to the Savoy Theatre where it ran for three weeks starting on 21 January 1929. [2] The entire cast from the Apollo reprised their roles ( George Zucco playing Osborne and Maurice Evans Raleigh) except for Olivier, who had secured another role and was replaced by Colin Clive as Stanhope. [3] The play was extremely well received: in the words of Whale's biographer James Curtis, it "managed to coalesce, at the right time and in the right manner, the impressions of a whole generation of men who were in the war and who had found it impossible, through words or deeds, to adequately express to their friends and families what the trenches had been like". [4] It transferred to the Prince of Wales Theatre, where it ran for a further two years.