The play is set three days before the Spring Offensive ('Operation Michael') where the Germans advanced from the Hindenburg line, on the Western Front, with the aims to break Allied lines and gain as much land as possible. It follows a company of men, who all know that an offensive is imminent, and how they deal with the knowledge that they could possibly die soon. It's an anti-war play, and you feel it's message by the end, because you feel that the war was pointless/useless. He added: “You get pretty much mixed audiences now. Women might not buy history books about the first world war, but they would go and see that play.”

Journey's End is a 1928 dramatic play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff, set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War. The story plays out in the officers' dugout of a British Army infantry company from 18 to 21 March 1918, providing a glimpse of the officers' lives in the last few days before Operation Michael. By the next afternoon preparations for the raid had been completed. A gap had been made in the barbed wire between the lines by trench mortars. The Germans, to let the British know they realized what was coming, had gone out and hung red rags on the gap, and they had zeroed in their machine guns on the gap. Stanhope tried to get the raid called off, but the colonel insisted that it was necessary. The mortars laid down a barrage of smoke shells to hide the rush of the raid. While Osborne and his party went to the German parapet and kept the way clear, Raleigh and another group of men clambered into the trench to capture a prisoner. Instead of writing a play that is about the combat, Sherriff chose to focus on the men and their feelings. The most striking part was that he could have chosen any group of soldiers on either side of No Man’s Land and still had the same play, the same feelings and the same message. Trewin, J. C. "Sherriff, Robert Cedric". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/31678. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)Journey's End @ the Greenwich Theatre - A Review - Londoneer". Archived from the original on 19 February 2013 . Retrieved 19 February 2013. I have seen Journey's End twice at the theatre. I have also seen the excellent 2017 film. However, this is the first time I have read the play. Raleigh admits that he requested to be sent to Stanhope's company. Osborne hints to Raleigh that Stanhope will not be the same person he knew from school, as the experiences of war have changed him; however, Raleigh does not seem to understand.

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.In 1930, James Whale directed an eponymous film based on the play, starring Colin Clive, David Manners and Ian Maclaren. [18] Stevens, Christopher (2010). Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams. John Murray. p.264. ISBN 978-1-84854-195-5. 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. The cover of the book that I own shows the poster for the 1929 Savoy Theatre production of Journey’s End. An officer can be seen The officers only get to sleep in short stints of two to three hours. On waking up, they have their tea and then immediately head for the trenches for duty. The cook too sleeps in his dugout and is always being called by one officer or another to serve breakfast, lunch or dinner or tea with jam