Journey's End

Journey's End
Brentano's Publisher's first edition, 1929
Written by	R. C. Sherriff
Date premiered	9 December 1928
Place premiered	Apollo Theatre London, England
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	British trenches in the days before Operation Michael during the First World War

Journey's End is a 1928 dramatic play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff, set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War. The story plays out in the officers' dugout of a British Army infantry company from 18 to 21 March 1918, providing a glimpse of the officers' lives in the last few days before Operation Michael.

The play was first performed at the Apollo Theatre in London by the Incorporated Stage Society on 9 December 1928, starring a young Laurence Olivier, and soon moved to other West End theatres for a two-year run. It was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1928–1929. The piece quickly became internationally popular, with numerous productions and tours in English and other languages. A 1930 film version was followed by other adaptations, and the play set a high standard for other works dealing with similar themes, and influenced playwrights including Noël Coward. It was Sherriff's seventh play. He considered calling it Suspense or Waiting, but eventually found a title in the closing line of a chapter of an unidentified book, "It was late in the evening when we came at last to our journey's end."^[1]