Many have wondered where playwright R.C. Sherriff (1896 – 1975) came up with the haunting title to his W.W. I play, Journey’s End; the answer appeared in the 1929 Vanity Fair review of his drama. Sherriff explained that when he was with the 9th East Surrey Regiment on the Western Front he was all of 16 – and he saw it while in the confines of an enemy trench, crudely scribbled on a plank that was nailed above the doorway of the officer’s dugout. Those words stayed in his mind all those many years until he one day picked up his pen and wrote the play.
In addition to this one review from Theatre Arts Magazine, we have also included a paragraph from a British critic named W.A. Darlington (theatre critic for The Daily Telegraph: 1920 to 1968) who had once fought in the trenches and approached the drama from the angle of a veteran:
“The curtain rose – and instantly I was taken back into the very atmosphere of the trenches…“
Click here if you would like to read another article about the WW I play Journey’s End.
