Journey's End (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Osborne describes the madness of war when describing how German soldiers allowed the British to rescue a wounded soldier in no man's land, while the next day the two sides shelled each other heavily. And yet the play differs from many post-1914 works of WWI fiction, in that it is not clearly antiwar.

Gore-Langton supplies enough information to satisfy the theatrical connoisseur and be of use to school-pupils mugging up on this syllabus staple. Journey's end is not about heroes, the main characters are every day people in every day people's lives. However, its director, Jack Gold, has also added some portions from Cecil Lewis's book "Sagittarius Rising".

Although it was fought by air and sea too, it’s the land war we tend to picture first when our thoughts turn to the First World War – as inevitably they will this centenary year – and above all of course the Western Front and the Trenches. A touring company took the same production to over 30 venues across Britain in 2004 and 2005 and back to London, to the New Ambassadors Theatre from September 2005 to January 2006. He still had that swiftly dispelled attitude that as well as doing his bit for King and Country, the war would provide adventure, allowing him to escape the deathly morass of office life.

I read this many years ago, but just noticed they have recently made it into a movie , so I decided to revisit it.

It is decided that Osborne and Raleigh will be the officers to go on the raid, despite the fact that Raleigh has only recently entered the war. C. Sherriff’s short (96 page), 1928 play about a group of officers in the trenches shortly before a German offensive - is very much of its time, and yet remains profoundly moving.