During dinner, Trotter decides to make a chart representing the remaining hours until he and his fellow officers can leave the trenches. On a paper he draws 144 circles, intending to fill them in as the hours pass. By the end of dinner, only Stanhope and Osborne remain in the dugout, and Stanhope is exceedingly drunk. He admits that he’s afraid Raleigh will write to his sister—who’s waiting for Stanhope to return—and tell her about his drinking. Stanhope declares that he’s going to censor Raleigh’s letters, and Osborne puts his drunken friend to bed. 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.

After recovering from his wounds, Sherriff worked as an insurance adjuster from 1918 to 1928 at Sun Insurance Company, London. [9] Stanhope is angry that Raleigh has been allowed to join him and describes the boy as a hero-worshipper. As Stanhope is in a relationship with Raleigh's sister Madge, he is concerned that Raleigh will write home and inform his sister of Stanhope's drinking. Stanhope tells Osborne that he will censor Raleigh's letters so this will not happen; Osborne does not approve. After the dinner Stanhope gave Raleigh a violent tongue-lashing for his conduct and tried to explain to the young officer why it had been necessary for the living to celebrate, even though Osborne had been killed.

Battles and wars are all about facing the enemy and fighting with all your might and courage. However, sometimes it also means running at full speed to escape death like the following extract shows: Sherriff, R. C. (1968). No Leading Lady: An Autobiography. London: Gollancz. pp.14, 22. ISBN 0-575-00155-0. Raleigh, an 18-year-old officer, reports for the first time to Osborne. Raleigh reveals that he wanted to join the company because his sister is engaged to Stanhope. Osborne detects Raleigh's idolization of Stanhope and gently cautions him that life on the front lines has a habit of changing men. Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of "Journey's End" in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a remarkable anti-war classic. The scenes between the men were extremely subtle and really drove home the complete and utter futility of it all. And I think it’s this subtlety that made the final scene all the more haunting.

I believe Raleigh'll go on liking you—and looking up to you—through everything. There's something very deep, and rather fine, about hero-worship." Osborne, Act I, p. 33 Osborne says it’s time to do the handing over. Hardy explains how the infantry holds two hundred yards of the front line by showing him gun stations and sentry posts on a tattered map. Osborne says a new officer is coming up tonight. They discuss the poor-quality officers they receive, and Osborne says he hopes it’s a youngster straight from school, as they do best. They discuss the sleeping situation in the dugout. Hardy says you mustn’t hang your legs too low or rats will gnaw your boots. Osborne asks if there are many rats and Hardy says roughly two million, but he doesn’t see them all. Hardy details trench stores of rusty grenades, bombs, and mismatched gum boots. Journey's End - the 2007 Broadway revival won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play I really enjoyed reading this play. It's a short book but it's one of those rare reads where every line serves a purpose. For me, what was most striking was its subtlety. Unlike many preconceptions of WW1 literature, it isn't all blood and gore but is instead set entirely behind the front line in a trench dugout. Some may find it tedious that the set never alters from the dugout but for me this was definitely to the play's advantage because it meant maximum focus was placed on character. It was so much more interesting - and I think important - to focus on the minds of those waiting on the front line. We already know what to expect from the action in terms of shelling, machine guns and other forms of warfare, but far better was it to examine the mental toll this takes on the officers burdened by it. There's Stanhope, commanding officer, who quite literally drinks his fears away; Osborne, who very much becomes the father of the group and is driven by an almost deathly calmness; Trotter, who's attention largely remains on his stomach; Hibbert, emotionally vulnerable but terrified to break with his manhood and show weakness; and finally Raleigh, whose innocence as a new recruit devastatingly polarises the damage done to the other officers. 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”.Sherriff was nominated along with Eric Maschwitz and Claudine West for an Academy award for writing an adapted screenplay for Goodbye, Mr. Chips which was released in 1939. [22] His 1955 screenplays, The Dam Busters and The Night My Number Came Up were nominated for best British screenplay BAFTA awards. [23] Work [ edit ] Plays [ edit ] Here is an extract from the play which shows the Brits praising their nemesis -- the Germans -- rather than shredding them to bits. This alone shows you that Mr. Sherriff wrote the book from his heart and provides credit where it is due. Even though I have read many anti-war poems dealing with the First World War, which were all written by youths like Owen and Sassoon who had experienced the war in the trenches, this is the first time that I have read a play regarding it. I don’t normally read plays because they seem to unleash a wave of high school-related memories and trying to think of quotes and line numbers and acts and basically getting myself into a tizzy.