Journey’s End in w/b 16th June 1930, was, strangely, one of only two major plays about the Great War. Only a dozen years had passed, yet the stage had no place to examine the greatest social event which affected the lives of everyone in the audience. It would be wrong to say all that was demanded was fluffy escapism, but most was. The war was too gloomy, it was claimed; and R. C. Sherriff’s play did not seem realistic enough anyway. It took the Stage Society, a group dedicated to new Writing, to produce the play one Sunday evening with Laurence Olivier in the main role. Despite critical acclaim, it still needed much effort to get it put on in the West End where it eventually ran for 594 performances.

Such was the ‘lack of realism’, that when it played at Streatham Hill, with Olivier replaced, the neighbourhood was kept awake by the noise of the explosions.

The play was directed by James Whale, who was later to make the classic movie Frankenstein.