Journey's End

[hencole]

I very rarely go to the theatre these days, but my Dad rang me up the other day to ask if  I wanted to go and see a production of Journey's End at the Comedy Theatre, a play about life in the trenches set soon before the great war ended in 1918. To be honest I didn't want to go, but knowing my dads love for all things  WW1 and WW2 and seeing as he had no one else to go with I agreed.  And boy am I glad I did. The story revolves around a group of  soldiers many of them officers based  at the front line very close to  when the war is about to end. It follows the  Captain and his battle with alcolism, fear and hoplesness as dealt with by himself and the other men. There is a light hearted feel to much of the play which is neccessary to a) keep  you engaged and b) to help numb the horror. Great use is made by sound and  the 'reduced fixed set' that really make for a clostrophobic and intense experience that works very well in what is a small theatre. I won't divuldge anymore only to say that with the use of a powerful potryal of the horror of the time by a fine cast of actors combined with a terryfying ending that uses deafening sound better than I have ever heard in anything be it film or theatre. At the  end there were grown men wiping tears from there face, far more than  the female members of the audience and just  silence. Not a person spoke untill they had left the theatre. I myself was suffering from what I can only descibe as shock, unable to breath properly and gulping for air, physicaly  shaking, and a trembling lip. This lasted for well over half an hour after the performance had ended and resurfaced through out the rest of the day. Never has any film/theatre producation caused  such a powerful reaction in me, and I can't think of many things that have happened in my life that get close to it either. To think that what I saw was an acted snap shot of  the war scares the hell out of me.

Go and see.

http://www.theambassadors.com/comedy/

[Krang]

I think we did this book in year 10 english. I really enjoyed it. Unfortunatly i dont remember much, as i was too busy making jokes about the new teacher "Mr Swallow"  aaaahaha!!

[Purple Tentacle]

I was the scottish chap (MacNeish?) in our "house play" in the sixth form.

We won.

Can't remember anything about it though, and I'm not entirely sure I want to.

[Krang]

I seem to remember Mr Swallow at one point saying "When youre scared, you bowels loosen... so you quite literally shit yourself!"

As you can imagine, saying that to a class of 15 year old boys wasnt the best. The line became a classic, and surfaced every lesson, always said in a similar style to Mr Swallow, who had a really stupid voice.

[Ghost of Troubled Joe]

Yeah, good play. I've seen the BBC adaptation, with (I think) Jeremy Northam and Timothy Spall, which was okay but a bit too stagey, not filmic enough. I always thought the ending to Journey's End was a bit of an anti-climax, but it seems like the cast and crew of the one you saw got it right.

If you've seen Withnail and I, Journey's End is the play Paul McGann wins a part in at the end.