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Set in the First World War, Journey's End concerns a group of British officers on the front line and opens in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed ...

Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of Journey's End in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a great anti-war classic.

"The Fortnight in September" by RC Sherriff was published in September 1931. It was glowingly reviewed: 'A lovely novel,' declared the "Daily Telegraph", 'a little masterpiece' wrote the "Sunday Express". In America, the "Saturday Review of Literature" thought that 'nothing since Dickens has come closer to giving between covers the intrinsic spirit of England.' "The Spectator" reviewer said: 'There is more simple human goodness and understanding in this book than in anything I have read for years...Once more, the author of "Journey's End" has enriched our lives.' "Journey's End" (1929) is one of the great stage plays. Set during the First World War, it had no women in it, no heroes and no love interest - it was about the hopes and fears of a group of ordinary men waiting in a dug-out for an attack to begin. It was based on Sherriff's own letters home, and its success was in part due to his ability to recreate the trench experience exactly as he had lived it."The Fortnight in September", written two years after "Journey's End", shares its emphasis on real people leading real lives. But the atmosphere could not be more different, embodying as it does the kind of mundane normality the men in the dug-out longed for - domestic life at 22 Corunna Road in Dulwich, the train journey via Clapham Junction to the south coast, the two weeks living in lodgings and going to the beach every day. The family's only regret is leaving their garden where, we can imagine, because it is September the dahlias are at their fiery best (hence the endpaper): as they flash past in the train they get a glimpse of their back garden, where 'a shaft of sunlight fell through the side passage and lit up the clump of white asters by the apple tree.' This was what the First World War soldier longed for; this, he imagined, was what he was fighting for and would return to (as in fact Sherriff did).He had had the idea for his novel at Bognor Regis (as in "Journey's End", and "The Hopkins Manuscript", Persephone Book No. 57, the physical setting is wonderfully evoked): watching the crowds go by, and wondering what their lives were like at home, he 'began to feel the itch to take one of those families at random and build up an imaginary story of their annual holiday by the sea...I wanted to write about simple, uncomplicated people doing normal things. 'Sherriff adds, in his memoir "No Leading Lady" (a few pages of which is reprinted at the beginning of the book): 'The story was a simple one: a small suburban family on their annual fortnight's holiday at Bognor: man and wife, a grown-up daughter working for a dressmaker, a son just started in a London office, and a younger boy still at school. It was a day-by-day account of their holiday from their last evening at home until the day they packed their bags for their return; how they came out of their shabby boarding house every morning and went down to the sea; how the father found hope for the future in his brief freedom from his humdrum work; how the children found romance and adventure; how the mother, scared of the sea, tried to make the others think she was enjoying it.'"The Fortnight in September" was a very brave book to write because it was not obviously 'about' anything except the 'drama of the undramatic'. And yet the greatness of the novel is that it is about each one of us: all of human life is here in the seemingly simple description of the family's annual holiday in Bognor. This is a book which fits fairly and squarely on the Persephone list.

Casting: 10 m / Scenery: Interior The greatest of all English war plays, Journey's End shows the effect of war on a group of young officers. The play is a tragic and moving piece for advanced casts.

Gripping mystery drama. An ordinary decent citizen is caught in a waking nightmare. A West-End hit in 1950.2 women, 5 men

The Heinemann Plays series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in durable classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. This play deals with the horror and futility of trench warfare, as Captain Stanhope and his officers await attack in their dugout.

The funny and moving story of the apocalypse - as seen from one small village in England 'I loved this book, by turns funny and tragic ... It moves between abject despair and good old-fashioned British stoicism with ease. Magical' Jeff Noon, Spectator, Books of the Year 2018 Retired teacher Edgar Hopkins lives for the thrill of winning poultry prizes. But his narrow world is shattered when he learns that the moon is about to come crashing into the earth, with apocalyptic consequences. The manuscript he leaves behind will be a testament - to his growing humanity and to how one English village tried to survive the end of the world... Written in 1939 as the world was teetering on the brink of global war, R. C. Sherriff's tragicomic novel is a masterly work of science fiction, and a powerful warning from the past. 'Spectacular, skilled and moving. It is supremely and alarmingly relevant' Fay Weldon 'Intensely readable and touching' Sunday Telegraph

There have been strange rumours about this house. Although it was in a state of ruin, lights were seen in the windows every Christmas Eve: music was heard: voices and laughter... With a superlative cast led by Aden Gillett (Winner of the OffWestEnd Award for Best Actor for Accolade at the Finborough Theatre) and Benjamin Whitrow. Christmas Eve, 1951. As Britain rebuilds itself after the war, John Greenwood has it all - a successful business, a beautiful house and an aristocratic wife. But as he bids farewell to the guests leaving his annual Christmas party, a gust of wind slams the front door shut, starting a chain of events that makes him doubt everything he has ever known...From the writer of one of the 20th century's most acclaimed plays, Journey's End, The White Carnation is a ghostly tale of one man's chance to do things differently. This rediscovery marks the first production since its premiere, starring Sir Ralph Richardson, in 1953.