Journey’s End

RC Sherriff's play takes place over three days in March in the final year of World War One: 1918. It was written just a decade later, when the horrors of the war and its effect on society were still fresh. It follows an infantrySoldiers who fight on foot. companyA small unit of soldiers., commanded by a young captain called Stanhope, who are holed up waiting for a big German attack. The play spoke to the men who had experienced the trenches but had not been able to tell others what it was like. Surviving soldiers were traumatisedInjured mentally, often by a specific, horrific event. by what they had seen. The "glory" of war which encouraged so many young men to join up now seemed like a terrible lie. Sherriff did not shy away from any of these themes in his brutal depiction of life in the trenches — and the humanity of the soldiers as they each try to cope with war is a heartbreaking reminder of the lives it took.