Journey's End (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Lost from the BBC archives for over 40 years, these rediscovered episodes are presented on CD for the very first time. 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 great anti-war classic. If you enjoyed Journey's End, you might like Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That, available in Penguin Modern Classics. There was a total lack of reality in the minds of commanding officers quite happy to send millions of men to an untimely death cut down by machine gun fire, entangled in barbed wire, or simply blown to pieces by a direct shell hit.

this full- cast production will charm listeners whether they already know and love these stories or are hearing them for the first time' - Audiofile Magazine 'How to Handle Men through the Application of Psychology': Precious Ram. The final series of the British comedy programme Blackadder ( Blackadder Goes Forth) focuses on the same theme and setting, sometimes with heavy parallels. The controversy that erupted shortly afterwards, and which continues to this day, has long overshadowed the other events of the bomber war, and blighted the memory of the young men who gave their lives to fight in the skies over Germany. C.) Sherriff, follows a group of British army troops in the days leading to Operation Michael, which was the last offensive operation from Germany that would mark the beginning of the end of WWI. He also takes a swipe at “government’s pathetic attempts to understand the role of the country bus between 1950 and 1970 and the appropriate way to fund and regulate it“.Instead of writing a play that is about the combat, Sherriff chose to focus on the men and their feelings. I prepared myself from Raleigh's introduction in Act One, yes, but I really let myself feel for him and sympathise with him. Sherriff's play manages to capture the narrative of young men going to war and the horrors that they face by setting up a small cast of characters who represent many different aspects of the war experience; the officer who cannot function without the aid of alcohol, the fresh-faced new recruit coming straight from school. Journey's End is considered a classic of First World War literature now, but at the time, it was rejected by almost every producer in the West End (‘How can I put on a play with no leading lady?

A 1930 film version was followed by other adaptations, and the play set a high standard for other works dealing with similar themes, and influenced playwrights including Noël Coward. Osborne reads Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” during his rest hours for enjoyment and escapism. The play focuses on a group of officers hunkered down together, but complete with regular meals, servants, a cook, the whole shebang that one would associate with the upper crust, or the young men of the officer class. Performed for more than two years in London, the play was one of the most popular productions of the 1920s. The piece quickly became internationally popular, with numerous productions and tours in English and other languages.

Besides, he has shifted the First World War story from trenches to the sky with air force pilots involved in dogfights. Yet the story of his battalion – known as 'The Gallants' after the bravery it displayed during the Battle of Loos – has never been told in full until now. Hibbert maintains that he does have neuralgia and the right to leave the battlefield to seek treatment, but when Stanhope threatens to shoot him if he goes, Hibbert breaks down crying. C. Sherriff, and I swear that for all intents and purposes I'm still in that officers' dug-out in Flanders while the noise and smoke of a concentrated enemy bombardment steadily increase in intensity. He talks with the older and world-weary Lieutenant Osborne, a former school teacher, about the war effort and life in the trenches.

Everyone knows that Stanhope should take the vacation time (like Captain Hardy) and recover a bit, but Stanhope insists it’s his duty to remain near the front line. and what made it even worse was remembering the things he'd said about his wife and his life with her, and giving Stanhope his stuff. If we are to believe numerous accounts the stiff upper lip prevailed and the language of the time; rugger, chap, topping, jolly introduced a surreal quality to this living hell. Sherriff had trouble getting Journey's End produced in the West End, writing that "Every management in London had turned the play down. But by retracing the journey Sherriff went on before he produced his epitaph for the lost generation he provides an illuminating route into the vast subject of the Great War itself.

It’s a stunning and deeply moving evocation of the sacrifices made by so many young people during the conflict of 1914-1918 and well worth the hour or two it takes to read. So yes, you've heard this story before and, yes, you know where it is going but there is no denying the power of a play that was written by a man who experienced this monstrous war first hand; who knew, intimately, the claustrophobia, the intolerable waiting, the sudden burst of action and the catastrophic consequences for the living and the dead.

stanhope experienced that three years ago; he is hardly clinging on, yet performing the capable leader. He criticises another soldier, Second Lieutenant Hibbert, whom he thinks is faking neuralgia in the eye so that he can be sent home instead of continuing fighting. The Colonel states that a German soldier needs to be captured so that intelligence can be extracted from him.The novel was adapted from the play, which was first performed at the Apollo Theatre in London on 9 December 1928, starring a young Laurence Olivier. The "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in durable classroom editions.