Journey's End (Bishop's Stortford)

Journey's End was one of the first – and arguably still one of the best – plays about the sheer futility of war. This new production still sets the four-day action in the front-line dugout which houses the officers of an infantry company immediately before the Battle of Saint-Quentin but gives it a living frieze provided by Contexture's students.

There is an interesting use of music, as well as the constant sound barrage of mortar shells as the Germans probe the barbed-wire of the trenches. I'm not sure about the blatantly 21st century accompaniment to the initial mimed action, but the snatches of music-hall and musical-comedy songs and the final, haunting "Where have all the flowers gone?" work splendidly.

Tom Cliff is the co-designer with director Gailie Pollock. It all allows space for the conversations as the officers come off duty, prepare for the next watch or patrol and compensate – each in his own way – for the psychological burden the increasingly dangerous situation imposes.

The performances are uniformly excellent, with Eddie Arnold's company commander Stanhope and Gregor Hunt's avuncular Osborne both particularly fine and well-rounded characterisations. Still-wet-behind-the-ears Raleigh, who hero-worshipped Stanhope as his school captain but finds him very different in this more lethal context, is fully sketched by Max Hesmondhalgh.

Tom Grace's Hibbert, desperate to be invalided out but receiving scant sympathy, is another good portrait. So is David Whitney's Trotter, the cook cum batman with an unusual repertoire. Nicholas Benjamin plays Mason, one of those perpetual jokers bound to get on anybody's nerves, let alone in this particular context.

Journey's End runs at the Rhodes Centre, Bishop's Stortford until 14 October.