17/11/2025
Sherriff50: Writing For the Sake of Writing
A Commemoration of R C Sherriff
1975-2025
…once you've tasted the joy and excitement of writing you can never give it up. You can kid yourself that you've finished, but you can't stop new ideas from floating in. They whisper their temptations and nudge your elbow and go on exciting you until at last you give way. You go to your study and draw the curtains. You sharpen your old blunt pencils, take that enticing little story by the hand and begin another journey into the land of make-believe. Whether the story lasts the course doesn't matter, for nothing measures up to the excitement of the night when you begin it.
R C Sherriff 'No Leading Lady' 1968
Born in 1896, R.C. Sherriff appeared resigned to the fact that he would probably be remembered for one thing. In the final paragraph of his autobiography, he remembers attending a prize-giving ceremony in 1967, where an old lady who brought him a cup of tea, commented on how much she’d enjoyed his play, Journey’s End’, written 40 years earlier, but wondered why he hadn’t written anything else.
‘Journey’s End’ is rightly regarded as one of the great English plays. In 2000, the National Theatre included it in its list of the 100 most influential pieces of theatre of the 20th Century. But Sherriff was more than just a ‘one-hit-wonder’. Kazuo Ishiguro chose Sherriff’s first novel, ‘The Fortnight in September’ as the book to get people through Lockdown, and his story of a cataclysmic world event, written in 1939, ‘The Hopkins Manuscript’, is currently in pre-production in Hollywood.
As a screenwriter he was responsible for scripting some of Cinema’s greatest movies – The Invisible Man, The Four Feathers, Goodbye Mr. Chips, That Hamilton Woman (reputedly Winston Churchill’s favourite film), Odd Man Out, and in 1955, The Dam Busters.
The success of ‘Journey’s End’, first staged with a relatively unknown Laurence Olivier in the lead role, was the start of an successful career as a playwright, with subjects as varied as Napoleon in ‘St Helena’, juvenile delinquency in ‘The Telescope’ and what it means to be British in ‘The Long Sunset’.
In 1930, Sherriff bought ‘Rosebriars’, the house in Esher where he lived until his death in 1975. The proceeds from the eventual sale of the House were used to establish The R C Sherriff Trust, an arts charity that has supported and promoted the arts for over 30 years. In 2026 The Trust has been thrilled to present Sherriff50, a commemoration of one of the greatest British writers the public has probably never heard of!
In 1950 he wrote the mystery ‘Home at Seven’ starring long time Sherriff collaborator Ralph Richardson. A new revival of the play, funded by The R C Sherriff Trust, opened at The Tabard Theatre in Chiswick in September before playing in venues across Elmbridge in October. Mark Lawson, writing in The Guardian newspaper, awarded the production 4 stars calling it a superbly acted time-slip mystery and a welcome rediscovery suitably marks the 50th anniversary of Sherriff’s death.
From 26 – 30 November a final series of commemorative events will take place at Riverhouse Arts Centre in Walton on Thames.
The Rosebriars Art Group Sherriff50 Exhibition
Work inspired by R C Sherriff and created by The Rosebriars Art Group
26-30 November
Shirkers or Spies?
R C Sherriff in Wartime Hollywood
Presented by Roland Wales
Before R C Sherriff moved out to Hollywood during the war he had already earned the wrath of the N***s for his work on The Road Back. When he arrived he found himself part of an expatriate community assailed by some in the UK as ‘shirkers’, and dismissed by N**i supporters as ‘spies’ in congressional hearings. But still they managed to produced, a range of patriotic movies that proved highly successful in the US, just as the British government had hoped.
Roland Wales is the author of R C Sherriff’s biography: From Journey’s End to the Dam Busters. He is currently working on Unfit for Heroes, an account of the return of servicemen and women after the First World War.
Thursday 27 November
7pm
Tickets £5
Sherriff on Screen
A Four Film Marathon of films scripted by R C Sherriff:
No Highway In The Sky (James Stewart & Marlene Dietrich)
The Night My Number Came Up (Michael Redgrave & Sheila Sim)
The Old Dark House (Boris Karloff & Charles Laughton)
Journey’s End (Sam Claflin Asa Butterfield)
Friday 28 November
The Adventurers Return
Staged readings of extracts from the work of R C Sherriff, including pieces from the sequel to Journey’s End, Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Hopkins Manuscript, The Ghost of Vimy Ridge and ‘A Hitch in The Proceedings’ the first play written for the Kingston Rowing Club.
Saturday 29 November
19:00pm
River Songs
The premiere of new choral music celebrating The Elmbridge Literary Competition using poems written by young Elmbridge poets.
Music composed by Jack Hurst
Performed by The Riverhouse Barn Choir
Conducted by Johnathan Kilhams
Sunday 30 November 2025
16:00pm
For full details of events please visit www.rcsherrifftrust.org.uk or www.riverhousebarn.co.uk or contact The R C Sherriff Trust Director, Pete Allen, at [email protected]
