If it’s a light, festive, Christmassy show you’re after then War Horse isn’t for you. But if you want to experience one of the most moving, immersive and powerful plays of the last 20 years, then now is your moment.
For those yet to experience it, Michael Morpurgo‘s classic novel, adapted by The National Theatre in 2007 and still on tour, depicts young Albert (Tom Sturgess) who joins the army to go and fight the Germans as WW1 breaks out.
His beloved horse Joey (brought to life by so many gifted puppeteers, Rianna Ash really standing out) is also commandeered by the army, one of a million horses requisitioned for the front. But Joey and Albert are separated, Joey forced to ride directly into the machine gun fire of the Germans.
Through barbed wire and gunshots, cannon dragging and slaughter, the horses endure the carnage in all its brutality, killed in their thousands. But Joey survives and Albert’s quest to find him is the overriding theme.
And yet the majesty of the play is not just about the atmospheric but pared back set, the haunting sounds of warfare, the emotive ballads sung so beautifully by Sally Swanson, or the brilliant cast, but the movement of the horses themselves, War Horse turning puppetry into a new art form, the horses exact movements entirely convincing.
All of which ensures that the audience is immersively transported to the grim, bleak reality of lions led by donkeys, sat on the edge of our seats, willing them on though the massacres of the Western front.
War Horse doesn’t shy away from reality, Morpurgo dedicated to exposing the truth in all its awfulness, (of the million horses sent to the front, only 62,000 returned), but there are moments of lightness, tenderness and gallows humour, the goose (Gun Suen) always raising a chuckle.
And if War Horse was ground-breaking when it debuted, it has lost none of its dramatic impact as we rose from our seats at the end weeping and clapping, it’s story-telling and dexterity rightly applauded by an emotional audience.
As we turned to leave, the woman next to us admitted she’d already seen War Horse three times during its current run at The New Theatre Oxford, and we understood why, although while massively impactful, it’s not for the faint-hearted.
On until Jan 4, yesterday’s matinee was full, as was opening night, so get in quick if you want to witness the global stage hit whose legacy lives on.
Claire Gee and Katherine MacAlister
War Horse runs until Jan 4 at New Theatre Oxford. https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/war-horse/new-theatre-oxford/
