Blog: War Horse

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On Monday night The Members Of My Cast and I went to The THEATRE to see War Horse. Executive Summary: it was really good.

We went because the aforesaid Questions In My Quiz had entered a competition for tickets and WON! We did wonder whether we'd get palmed off with terrible seats but as it turned out we were RIGHT near the front, DEAD centre - pretty much the seats we would have picked if we could!

We got there a bit early so had time to appreciate The New London Theatre, which is very much like a NICE version of The Barbican or The South Bank i.e. that sort of 60s/70s concrete architecture but somehow FRIENDLY and welcoming. The Names On My Signs noticed that the two bars were called "The Wintergarden Bar" and "Middlesex Bar" and worked out that these were the names of the theatres that preceded it - she was RIGHT! Wot a BRANE!

The show itself was pretty amazing - it's about a horse that gets taken to the front during the First World War, basically, and The Big Gimmick of the production is that they have HUGE puppet versions of animals. They are INCREDIBLE - you don't FORGET that the main horse has three people working it at all times, but you see through them to an actual living animal, breathing and with its own personality. It's RATHER good!

The rest of the show was good too - it was staged very much in that Peter Brook/National Theatre way (i.e. that I only ever saw on Channel 4 documentaries and adolescent attempts to watch The South Bank Show) where it's a black backdrop, large ensemble cast playing different parts, and bits of PROPS and SCENERY that get re-used and moved around. It worked EXTREMELY well, SORT OF like a musical without songs... er... that DID have songs in it, but not a musical. If you see what I mean.

Anyway, it was dead good and at the end I had a SMALL CRY - HOORAH for Theatre!

posted 12/11/2015 by MJ Hibbett

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