The stench of First World War trenches hangs over the Theatre Royal this week as a searing production of RC Sherriff's anti-war play Journey's End comes to the city.

It is 1918 and nerves are stretched tight as the British troops at St Quentin on the Western Front await the long-expected German attack.

And for Captain Dennis Stanhope (Tom Wisdom), who has been at the front for three years, it is just another fear to add to his collection of horrors, which are only kept at bay by vast intakes of whisky.

He is the commander of C Company, which also includes Lt Osborne (Philip Franks), known because of his age as "Uncle", Lt Trotter (Roger Walker), a continually jovial up-from-the-ranks officer, Lt Hibbert (Stephen Hudson), who is always in a state of funk and new boy Lt Raleigh, a former school pal of Stanhope's who is out at the the front line for the first time.

Close your eyes and you can smell the world they are in. Human sweat, dead rats, bad food, cigarette smoke, mud and the claustrophobia of living in a dingy dug-out on the front line with the enemy only 60 yards away.

Sherriff's play looks at men who are on the edge but still doing their duty. Stanhope's whisky, Osborne's talk of gardening and re-reading of Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland and Hibbert's "neuralgia" are what keeps them sane.

Sherriff was a serving soldier in The Great War (my grandfather served in the same regiment) and tells of his own experiences. He includes private soldiers and NCOs, who are all men with bluff exteriors and obviously knew the black humour and the banter which masked the fear.

Franks shakes off forever his Darling Buds Of May image as "Uncle", putting in an elegant performance as the former schoolteacher who knows his time has come.

But this is an ensemble show where every cast member will imprint his role on your brain. Together the cast bring First World War trench life alive in all its horror.

The comedy comes from the carefully observed behaviour but you are not far into the action before you are a silent, open-mouthed watcher of visions of hell not yet 100 years away.