Rewrite rule causing 500 error

[Drongo_III]

Hello

 

I have a really basic regex on a rewrite rule that is causing a 500 error and I cannot see why it would.

 

I have a directory called 'help'.  What I want is for anytime someone hits the help directory with a tailing url it will simply get rewritten back to help (there are some ajax generated pages).

 

so if someone hits /help/kittens they'll simply get rewritten back to help.

 

However, when I try to use the following rewriterule in htaccess it just gives me a 500 error.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^help/([a-z]+) /help [NC,L]

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Drongo