JOURNEY'S END
17th April - 3rd May, 2008
MERCURY THEATRE, COLCHESTER

"David Oakes's beautifully measured performance as Raleigh - the young, newly arrived officer who has managed to get himself placed under the command of his boyhood hero, Stanhope, three years his senior at school - has an effeminate, coy emphasis." Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph, 30 Apr 2008

Later that year the show was reported as one of the top ten shows of 2008 by The Daily Telegraph:

"Sometimes a regional theatre gets it spot-on. Tony Casement's revival of RC Sherriff's monument to the First World War slain at the Mercury Colchester gave us ensemble playing at its nuanced best, catching the doomed soldiers' inward terror and outward British bravado to perfection." 17 Dec 2008

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Based upon his own experiences of life in the trenches, RC Sherriff’s Journey’s End is a forthright account of the effect of war on a small company of British soldiers.

When new recruit, Raleigh, is sent to join Captain Stanhope’s Infantry Company in the final year of the First World War, he finds his schoolboy hero almost unrecognisably altered.

Despite the cruel conditions and ever-present threat of enemy fire, relationships between the men are touching and humorous as they do their best to maintain a sense of normality. This poignant story honours the courage and heroism displayed by the innumerable men who fought for their country.

Dominic Cavendish reviews Journey's End at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester
DAILY TELEGRAPH - 28th April 2008

"On a perfect night - and I judge Tony Casement's revival to be pretty much faultless - you see what cannot be shown, hear what cannot be said: the horror that lies just beyond the officers' dug-out where the action is confined.

David Oakes's beautifully measured performance as Raleigh - the young, newly arrived officer who has managed to get himself placed under the command of his boyhood hero, Stanhope, three years his senior at school - has an effeminate, coy emphasis.

And this reminds you, as Raleigh's adoration comes up against Stanhope's whisky-addled scorn, superbly rendered by a stern, inwardly faltering Gus Gallagher, that Sherriff's classic is at heart a kind of love story."