Play review - "Journey's End" by RC Sherriff

Stunning 1928 play from RC Sherriff which surprised me how much it still held up. On one level you can make fun of it, with the characters all tally-ho and jolly-good and forelock tugging privates and talk of rugger and school and forests back home - the sort of character Hugh Laurie played in Black Adder Goes Fourth. But the underbelly is so real, so tragic - and Sherriff was there, you can tell he was there, with the smell of death and destruction over every page. It's amazing. Two scenes are particulary brilliant - the one where Stanhorpe confronts a coward with a gun and talks of his own cowardice, and the one where two officers - a young one and an old one - chat in the trench minutes before they go over the top. This is breathtaking writing. The climax is also strong - and there is a massive shock when Stanhope, who you're convinced is going to die... actually lives. Powerful, brilliant, etc.