"Journey's End came at psychologically the right moment. The war had been over for 10 years. What plays there had been about it had tended to be heroic and romanticised – the reality was too near and horrific for close contemplation. Journey's End, set in a dug-out in the front line just before a German offensive, was a simple statement of how men lived after four long years of war... They wait in their dug-out, enduring lice, the stench of earth, ordure, corpses and cordite, knowing but never admitting that their chances of survival are minimal. They talk of insensitive generals but never of the political stupidity that led them to be there. They regard the Germans in their dug-outs on the other side of the barbed wire of No-Man's-Land as being as unfortunate as themselves. They yearn for the sight of the New Forest and the Sussex Downs. To that 1929 audience they must have seemed the incarnation of the lost generation."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Reprinted with small deletions from the Sunday Times Magazine (16 April 1972)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._C._Sherriff
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
R. C. Sherriff
Robert Cedric Sherriff FSA FRSL (6 June 1896 – 13 November 1975) was an English writer best known for his play Journey's End, which was based on his experiences as an army officer in the First World War. He wrote several plays, many novels, and multiple screenplays, and was nominated for an Academy Award and two BAFTA awards.
8 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by R. C. Sherriff →
Related Quotes
"The King had honoured his play [Journey's End] that night by being present at the Prince of Wales Theatre. In handing…"
"He did not write the play with the commercial management in mind. He did not write it with a view to peace propaganda…"
"You will never sense the theatre. This is not "acting" but reality. The hand of God presses itself firmly on your sho…"
"In the early part of the century, audiences possibly listened more than they do today. In Journey's End the verbal co…"
"In his play Mr. Sherriff had given the world a great thought, a great message, and, she believed, the profound hope t…"
"Some plays drift into neglect from sheer familiarity. The success of R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End in 1929 still cas…"
"It makes you think of the old days. We all knew these fellows, didn't we? This is so real."
"The twentieth century had conclusively settled the question of how a society should be organised: liberal democracy, …"
"For James, there was no sense that expanding Tesco’s sales onto the web was what the human race urgently needed. It d…"
"It was insane that you had to pretend to be interested in your job and use these lame phrases like “pinging things ov…"