CityLife

Journey's End

Journey’s End 
Buxton Opera House
March 15, 2010

Next Sunday (March 21) marks the anniversary of the fateful day in 1918 when the German army made an onslaught on the British soldiers in the rat-infested trenches of St Quentin.

RC Sherriff’s own experiences in the trenches inspired him to write what has become a classic First World War play, convincingly capturing the resignation and resolve of the soldiers compelled to wait for their impending 'journey’s end'. Their bunker is eerily quiet before the storm of an unequal battle. Between watches, time goes slowly, boredom relieved by small talk of home, complaints about the grub, confrontations under stress.

An alternative title for the play was 'Waiting' – and that is the substance of the drama, as the officers in their dugout await the inevitable, drinking whisky out of tin mugs, hiding fear, sharing humour, each personality coping – or not - in his own way.

Leading them is young Captain Stanhope, driven, unrelenting, relying on whisky to keep going, compellingly portrayed by Christopher Harper (and by Laurence Olivier in the original production which ran for two years at the Savoy Theatre in 1928).

He is only disconcerted when a former hero-worshipping schoolmate, played by Tom Hackney, joins his company as a young officer. The excellent Graham Seed (Nigel Pargeter in The Archers) is Stanhope’s second-in-command, older, pipe-smoking, laid back and reading Alice in Wonderland before going into battle.

Director Alastair Whatley has assembled an all-round fine cast for this exceptional touring production by the Original Theatre Company and Icarus Theatre Collective. It’s a penetrating and perceptive account of Sherriff’s masterful microcosm of war, of its time, but clearly not without relevance today.   

Designer Victoria Spearing captures the cluttered and claustrophobic dugout with telling effect.

On the opening night the performance was cut short by a malfunction of the safety curtain, which added to the drama. But this production is worth journeying to Buxton for – a rare chance to see a real classic immaculately performed.

For more details, visit www.buxtonoperahouse.org.uk.