The Play: Journey's End: grippingly portrays four days in the lives of a small group of soldiers in the trenches of WW1 in 1918. Set in a realistically detailed officer's dugout, the men do not know these are their last four days.
They get on with doing their duty to King and Country as best they can - with courage, camaraderie, whisky, stiff-upper-lip, ironic humour - even races with earwigs! Outside the guns pound away, mortar shells smack the ground, the verey lights rise and fall, and there are eerie silences.
We (the audience) know the "end" but it is the "journey" towards it that gives this play its dramatic punch and is so moving in its humanity. We are held in the moment.
The first half is largely a waiting game, full of tension, bad jokes, and strained conversation as the German Offensive comes closer, but we get to know the characters intimately. After the interval when all hell breaks loose, we really care about the characters' fate.
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