Journey's End (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Purkis, Charlotte (2016) 'The Mediation of Constructions of Pacifism in Journey's End and The Searcher, two Contrasting Dramatic Memorials from the Late 1920s' https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2015.1135753 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 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.

The play is the basis for the film Aces High (1976), although the action was switched from the infantry to the Royal Flying Corps. Stanhope sarcastically states, "How awfully nice – if the Brigadier's pleased", when the Colonel's first concern is whether information has been gathered, not whether all the soldiers have returned safely. Six of ten other ranks have been killed. The play was televised by the BBC Television Service, live from its Alexandra Palace studios, on 11 November 1937, in commemoration of Armistice Day. Condensed into a one-hour version by the producer George More O'Ferrall, some short sequences from the film Westfront 1918 (1930) by G. W. Pabst were used for scene-setting purposes. Reginald Tate starred as Stanhope, with Basil Gill as Osborne, Norman Pierce as Trotter, Wallace Douglas as Raleigh, J. Neil More as the Colonel, R. Brooks Turner as the Company Sergeant-Major, Alexander Field as Mason, Reginald Smith as Hardy, and Olaf Olsen as the young German soldier. Because it was broadcast live, and the technology to record television programmes did not exist at the time, no visual records of the production survive other than still photographs. [19] 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.

At the end of the First World War and during the years that followed, many authors, artists and playwrights responded to the conflict through their work. One such example is the play Journey’s End by R C Sherriff. Osborne describes the madness of war when describing how German soldiers allowed the British to rescue a wounded soldier in no man's land, while the next day the two sides shelled each other heavily. He describes the war as "silly". It is, in some respects, the World War One experience we have come to know the most, which is the Officers war. There are non-Officers in the play, but one of them is played mostly for comic relief, which is Mason, the Cook. There's a Sargeant Major, who features briefly. Trotter, one of the Officers, is a more middle-class man. Osborne - or Uncle - is a schoolteacher. But our main focuses are Stanhope and Raleigh, who were a public school together. Stanhope has been at the front for three solid years and is barely holding it together. Whisky keeps him afloat. I read this play for my dissertation, and I really enjoyed it. I had watched the 2017 movie adaption with Sam Clafin and Asa Butterfield before reading the play so I knew what was going to happen. If you haven't watched the movie I would highly recommend it. It's very moving.

Olivier played the part again in 1934 at a special performance for a post-war charity, with Horne and Zucco from the original cast. See "Special Performance of 'Journey's End'", The Times, 3 November 1934, p. 10 Osborne puts a tired and somewhat drunk Stanhope to bed. Stanhope, as well as the other officers, refers to Osborne as "Uncle". It might sound like I'm being harsh on this play for some of its class assumptions, but it also shows that the war affected everyone. Soldiers of all classes and all ranks died on the battlefields of World War One. Indeed, the casualty rate amongst frontline officers was horrific. Worse than the ordinary ranks as a percentage. So, if this story is the usual story then that's to be accepted. Because it is a moving story. You do feel for the characters and you sense the oncoming story.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. Set over a period of four days from 18th – 21st March 1918, it recounts the experiences of the officers of a British Army company. The scenes take place in the trenches around Saint-Quentin in the days leading up to Operation Michael and the beginning of the German Spring Offensive. 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. 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] She doesn't know that if I went up those steps into the front line—without being doped up with whiskey—I'd go mad with fright." Stanhope, Act I, p. 31

Vahimagi, Tise (1994). British Television: An Illustrated Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.8. ISBN 978-0-19-818336-5.

Producer Guy de Beaujeu said that, through the film, they want to interest younger people – particularly women – in the first world war and show them how it is “of importance and consequence to them”.