Given that five million people have seen War Horse on stage around the world since its launch some six years ago, every possible word, every adjective, every passage of praise that could be spoken or written about it has already been said.
Lucky for me then, that apart from its awesome reputation I didn’t have any preconceived expectations about what I would witness on stage at The Mayflower this week. I haven’t even seen Spielberg’s 2011 film.
I knew it would be good, I had heard the puppetry was clever and I was warned to take a fresh handkerchief.
So I really was stunned by this amazing piece of theatre; two and a quarter hours flew by in a whirlwind of light and sound, projected imagery, breathtaking simplicity and a gut-wrenching storyline.
Take a bare stage – so black it is ink-black. Add a huge piece of torn paper on which to project animated sketches, lighting and sound that bombards the senses and contrast it with a single pure male folk singing voice and you have the backdrop for this story and the most stunning puppetry on a grand scale that I have ever seen.
Designer Rae Smith along with the lighting, sound, video designers have created a visual masterpiece and the music and sound by Adrian Sutton and Christopher Shutt complete the picture.
Michael Morpurgo’s now famous book, on which the play is based, is a simple enough story – the First World War seen through the eyes of a horse, Joey, as he is raised on a Devon farm before being drafted into the front line, along with Albert Narracott, his young owner and thousands of others.
It is, inevitably, a reflection of the futility of that war which saw ten million fighting men – 800,000 of them British - killed in appalling circumstances. It is as importantly an eye opener into the plight of the million horses that were also sent to fight for their country in France. Only 62,000 of them returned.
To relay such intense emotions as such a sad chapter in the world’s history evokes, requires gravitas and feeling, sympathy for those who suffered so horribly and for those they left behind.
And yet War Horse has some extremely touching, funny, laugh-out-loud moments that reinforce the comradeship and bravery behind the horror.
The cast, led by Lee Armstrong as Albert, is faultless in delivery and characterisation. The innocent pre-war Devonians, French victims trapped in a battle zone, the Tommies with their idiosyncratic Britishness whatever the circumstances (“Je suis un sod” says the Sergeant), the Germans who, underneath it all were human and vulnerable too. And the real stars, the horses.
As to the puppetry, it is mind-numbingly clever. The three puppeteers operating each of the two lead equine roles become invisible.
After the first minute or so you don’t see them any more, just the horses they are playing. This is acting at its finest - and without a word uttered. Every twitch of the ears, snort and hoof scrape is so convincing you forget these are puppets, not real animals. So much so that Joey and Topthorn, as the equine characters they have become, take their own curtain call. How real is that?
First premiered at the Olivier Theatre in October 2007 before transferring to the West End and then to Broadway, Toronto, North America on tour, Australia on tour, and now the UK and Ireland on tour, it is no wonder that so many people have been privileged, like me, to witness this incredibly powerful piece of theatre.
But even then, all those people in all that time still only represent half the number of men – and horses – that perished in the ‘war to end all wars’.
War Horse runs at the Mayflower until 15th March when it transfers to Dublin.
