Stage Right: Beautiful Striding

Hi everyone, here I am with my final post from my epic extended weekend. If you haven't read any of my previous blogs on this, this trip included seeing Rocky Horror in Manchester before whizzing down to London for West End Live (WEL) and combining it with seeing Book of Mormon, Top Hat and, the subject of this blog, War Horse.

I'd always wanted to see War Horse as I'd loved the book and, also, really love horses. However, it was always one of those shows that was constantly on my list of shows to see but never quite reached the top. Well during our time at WEL my mum and I decided to take the bit between our teeth and go and see this, frankly superb, show.

War Horse is playing in the New London Theatre, which is quite an anomaly in itself. You enter into a small area and are directed up an escalator by one of the theatre stewards, before entering into a large foyer type area complete with the traditional theatre sights such as a merchandise stand and a bar. The theatre space itself is, yet again, slightly different from your typical proscenium arch theatre; there is no theatre curtain, the front of the stage is curved and the seats slope down towards the stage on a rather severe angle. I'll include some picture below so that you can see for yourself...not taken by me I hasten to add, just a quick Google search.

My mum and I were sat in row M of the stalls and to the right hand side; from here we could see everything really clearly. The seats themselves had loads of leg room, which is more than can be said for the two seats in the row behind. My personal opinion is that the seats were not the most comfortable, however, this could have been more to do with the fact that I was aching from WEL rather than being anything to do with the seats themselves.

The show itself was breath-taking-ly beautiful. This beauty was mainly due to the horses (I'll include a picture of these as well), which were life size puppets that could be road on by the actors. I really have to commend the puppeteers of these horses as after a short period of time I began to believe that the horses were real creatures for they moved so much like they were.

The other thing about the play I found beautiful was that the backdrop consisted of a jiggered white strip that ran across the stage (yet again, I'll include a picture) and was used to set the scene by portraying black and white film or moving sketches. This strip was, also, used to communicate the time scale of the piece. I don't really think I've done it justice here but during the play I was really impressed and it really added to the peaceful and beautiful quality of the play.

Like this strip, the rest of the props were very simple and sometimes, non existent. This added a simple quality to the play and allowed me to focus on the story itself rather than being wowed by fancy props. Saying this, however, the animal in the play, particularly the horses were rather technical, nevertheless, I think that the worked well with highlighting the story as the animals were an integral part to what was being told.

The cast themselves were a joy to behold and all worked well in tune with each other. I was particularly impressed by Siôn Daniel Young, who plays Albert Narracott, for his relationship with Joey, the horse, was so true and heartfelt and extremely believable. The other person who impressed me was Tom Meredith who operated the goose and was extremely funny in doing so.

My only criticism would be that I did have to make a conscious effort to stay awake...however I am pretty sure that this was more to do with the fact that I had been running around like a mad person since Wednesday evening, travelled about 360 miles of which approximately 200 was driving (please forgive me if my maths is wrong) and was just generally shattered anyway rather than it being anything to do with the show itself. I think what I'm trying to say is that if you're looking for a show that will have you dancing in the aisles, War Horse probably isn't your cup of tea (or bale of hay), however, if you're looking for a beautifully, simple show then I really think you'll love it.

Overall, I really enjoyed seeing War Horse and was very pleased that we finally went to see it. I'll leave you with the picture's I've mentioned below, along with the one I took myself.