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. It is decided that Osborne and Raleigh will be the officers to go on the raid, despite the fact that Raleigh has only recently entered the war.

The play was adapted for television in 1988, starring Jeremy Northam as Stanhope, Edward Petherbridge as Osborne, and Timothy Spall as Trotter. [20] It held close to the original script although there were changes, the most obvious being the depiction on camera of the raid, which happens off-stage in the theatre production. 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] She doesn't know that if I went up those steps into the front line – without being doped with whisky – I'd go mad with fright.” 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.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. 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.

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.maybe i'm just sensitive today, cause i'm not an easy crier. or maybe this play is just like that. i don't know. 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. A radio adaptation by Peter Watts was produced for BBC Radio 4's Saturday Night Theatre in November 1970, featuring Martin Jarvis as Captain Stanhope.