The moving portrayal of life in the trenches in WW1, now a new film from the director of Suite Française, starring Sam Clafin, Paul Bettany, Stephen Graham and Asa Butterfield
Set in the First World War, Journey's End is the story of a group of British officers on the front line, in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed. 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.
'Its unrelenting tension, and its regard for human decency in a vast world of human waste, are impressive and, even now, moving' Clive Barnes
R.C. Sherriff (1896-1975) served as a captain in the East Surrey regiment during the First World War and subsequently tried his hand at writing. Following rejection by many theatre managements, Journey's End was given a single performance by the Incorporated Stage Society, in which Lawrence Olivier took the lead role. The play's enormous success enabled Sherriff to become a full-time writer. He is remembered for his plays, the screenplays for the films The Invisible Man (1933), Goodbye Mr Chips (1933) and The Dam Busters (1955), and the novel The Hopkins Manuscript (1939).