Sunday 21st April 2013 by Will Langdale
A quick pick of what’s hot in the TicketTree.com office
An introduction to War Horse
As one of the most popular shows in the West End, and with versions being adapted for theatres all over the world, War Horse is an incredible success story. Yet it’s a play that doesn’t have the traditional hallmarks of an internationally popular production; of the shows in the West End that pack the house night after night and have done so for the past decade, the commonality is a tendency to burst into song with large and elaborate sets rather than an unerring gaze into the violence inherent in the First World War. So how did War Horse get where it is?
The original novel, by Michael Morpurgo, was published back in 1982, and actually has a 1997 sequel in Farm Boy, a less well-known adaptation of which has just finished a UK tour. Morpugo worried about his ability to write a novel with an animal protagonist, but after watching an incident connected to his wife’s charity work, where a stuttering boy overcame his impediment by speaking to a horse, Morpugo felt compelled to use the device to examine the suffering of the First World War. Here one of the most notable aspects of War Horse solidified: despite the tendency of fictional depictions of war to choose sides, War Horse chose none. War itself is the story’s antagonist.
In 2007 the National Theatre commissioned an adaptation by Nick Stafford, co-directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris. It was originally supposed to run at the Olivier Theatre from October 2007 to February 2008 as part of the National’s Winter season, but ended up returning in September 2008 and running through until the beginning of 2009, when it transferred to its current home at the New London Theatre. The sheer success of the play is unparalleled – the lofty heights of £70 and above top-priced seats tends to be reserved for the 1,500-seater musicals, yet War Horse happily fills its Stalls at close to that, while maintaining some excellent cheap seats too.
Part of the draw is the spectacle. The National’s production was in association with the South African Handspring Puppet Company, who construct the intricate and lifelike horses. Pictures of the puppets simply don’t do them justice – a lucky coincidence for those attempting to fill a theatre each night! The horses’ movements and their careful attention to details as small as the flicking of the ears is a huge part of what makes the play a joy to watch, even though the rest of the set is essentially a large black space headed by a torn sheet of paper, upon which images are projected.
And War Horse’s international success is incredible news for Handspring, for whom each set of horses takes about a year to construct. Steven Spielburg’s award-winning (but unpuppetted) 2011 film came at a time when the Broadway production was in its infancy, and since then versions in Canada, Australia and Germany have opened or are opening. War Horse has gone from being a fairly popular British children’s novel to an international theatrical juggernaut.
Fancy finding out more about how War Horse made it from paperback to play? Channel 4’s recently-aired Making War Horse is unfortunately not available for free online, but can be found on Amazon. It’s an excellent documentary, well worth watching if you have the time.
Deal of the Week
On a blog about War Horse, how could we offer anything but a War Horse discount? Trot along to a War Horse package and use HORSEBLOG at the end to net yourself a 5% discount until the end of the month!