Reviews
Report by: Guy Carpenter on Saturday 24 March 2018
Venue: Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond
Director: Gregan Davis
Journey’s End, by RC Sherriff, is a pretty well known piece in the theatrical war canon. Laurence Olivier performed the first production of it back in 1928 and it has been popular ever since: a tale of banality and brutality in the trenches near St Quentin in 1918.
This production at the Georgian Theatre was well staged by Richmond Amateur Dramatic Society, and directed by Gregan Davis. Scott Fenney starred as the alcoholic and self-loathing Captain Stanhope in the days leading up to the Kaiserslacht offensive.
Most of the play is concerned with the arrival of a new young officer in the trench, and the mundane lives that officers and soldiers endured in the trenches, in between the brief segments of death and horror.
The set was excellent. The dugout area looked particularly effective with the muddy red lighting, giving the gloomy, myopic effect of candlelight – in fact, it wasn’t until the end of the performance that you could clearly see the actors’ faces, which made the sudden reveal all the more powerful. The trench area outside was more impressionistic, with a slightly acid-trippy day/night cycle going on above the stage, counting down to the dawn of the suspected “big German push”. The unreality of that added to it rather than detracted.
The delivery of the dialogue was the weak link in the performance. Flat and fast, the entire performance was one non-stop unrolling of script, without space to breathe and take stock. A few moments of on-stage action without talking might have helped punctuate. In addition, the actors seemed more focused on getting their assigned verbal persona correct rather than the delivery. We had “Comical Cook”, “Fatherly Don About To Be Sacrificed”, “Gruff As Hell Give Em Hell Sergeant Major”, and “Wet Behind The Ears Public Schoolboy Heading For A Fall”, all very clearly delineated from their deliveries, but then running into the problem of heading for caricature.
It is of course the centenary of the events depicted. I still don’t think that means the play couldn’t have been updated, to make it more accessible, and to also show that as much as things have changed, they haven’t really changed at all. Transpose the action to a forward operating base somewhere in Helmand and we could still have had a story of futility, fear, and self-medication with alcohol, but with fewer tongue in cheek uses of the word “topping”.
It is of course a great play and this is a first class production of it, potentially improved by a bit of excision work on the script to give the actors some breathing space. Worth going to see.
Report by: Rhoda Fraser on Wednesday 21 March 2018
Venue: Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond
Director: Gregan Davis
Journeys End gave us a glimpse into the Officers dug out in northern France over four days, March 1918, during the First World War, prior to real life events of Operation Michael.
Sherriff based the play on his own experiences while in active service in France.
The evening I attended, the play was made even more poignant by the fact that it was 100 years since the actual event, known as the Second battle of the Somme.
On entering, the set was open and the theatre dressed with hessian, a clever touch, taking away all colour and drawing you into the small dug out area, focusing you to the action. Lighting and sound added atmosphere particularly during the crescendo of the final battle, well done Tony Wilcock.
Stanhope (Scott Fenney) and Osbourne (Miles Templeton) gave us some powerful raw moments of life working in adverse conditions. Raleigh (Jasper Worrall) playing the new, naïve Officer keen to serve under his old school hero, brought a sparkle to the stage and later upon his death, a tear to the eye.
Throughout the play Mason the cook (Charles Lambert) served up a variety of “amazing” dishes, (and onion tea) eaten with great gusto by Trotter (Jordan Leighton) the pair giving light and humour to the production.
The captured German (Stewart Kerr) gave a competent cameo performance, and the supporting team worked well together to give the atmosphere of the stresses occurring at the front line, and how different characters cope with that.
Jim Jack, a well-known local singer, strongly led the entire cast in the song “Only Remembered” alongside information of what followed in reality, the play we had just seen. The authentic costumes, and a final salute rather than a bow, were pure gold, well done Gregan some lovely ideas.
A final thank you to the ladies for sitting out this production, I noticed a number of members worked supporting backstage; I look forward to seeing you in the RADS Summer show, A Bunch of Amateurs.
R.C.Sherriff's ground-breaking play remains one of the most powerful and successful pieces of modern drama and one of the most acclaimed examples of literature that deals with the tragedy and horror of conflict.
Set over the course of four days leading up to a massive German attack on the British trenches in 1918, Journey's End charts the tension and claustrophobia as the new recruit to the company, Lieutenant Raleigh, discovers that Captain Stanhope, his former childhood friend and hero, has changed almost beyond recognition.
The first night of RADS production (21 March 2018) coincided exactly with the 100th anniversary of the opening artillery barrage of Operation Kaiserslacht, the German offensive which comprises the last moments of Journey’s End. The play formed part of a wider series of events based around life and the activities in Richmond and Richmondshire in March 1918.
