Journey's End

From Theatre Breaks

Journey's End, David Grindley's award winning production of R C Sheriff's classic 1928 anti-war play, returns to the West End for a limited seven week season at the Duke of York’s Theatre as part of its ongoing national UK tour.

Set in the British trenches of St Quintin during the final weeks of the First World War, Journey's End depicts a group of British officers on the front line in France as they prepare to face their enemy. Eighteen year old former public school boy Raleigh is the newest arrival to join the beleaguered company, led by his one-time school friend and sporting hero Captain Stanhope. But naive Raleigh soon discovers that Stanhope has changed dramatically in the intervening years, and as a veteran and the longest-serving officer there, he is no longer the man he once so admired.

Based on the author's own bitter experience of the front and life in the trenches as a Captain in the East Surrey Regiment, this deeply moving masterpiece celebrates humour and courage in the face of certain tragedy and remains an important reminder of the horrors of war and the ordinary men who fought for their country in extraordinary circumstances.