R. C. Sherriff

The moving portrayal of life in the trenches in WW1, now a new film from the director of Suite Française, starring Sam Clafin, Paul Bettany, Stephen Graham and Asa Butterfield Set in the First World War, Journey's End is the story of a group of British officers on the front line, in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed. 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 remarkable anti-war classic. 'Its unrelenting tension, and its regard for human decency in a vast world of human waste, are impressive and, even now, moving' Clive Barnes