"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 =================== 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. Dominic Cavendish reviews Journey's End at
the Mercury Theatre, Colchester "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." |