War Horse at Theatre Royal Plymouth is 'unmissable'

Almost a million horses were sent from Britain to France during World War One, and only 62,000 were to return from the horrors of the battlefield during those years. It was a number not dissimilar to the number of men who went but never returned.

Yet in a war that was fought – on both sides – by men who had been sent by other men, the fate of those horses now seems a poignant reminder of the real costs of conflict.

It was a story in a Devon pub told by a veteran of the so-called Great War which prompted Michael Morpurgo to write War Horse, a 1982 book which was released to little fanfare and which garnered few sales.

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It was only when the tale of Joey, the eponymous hero, and his journey with farm lad Albert Narracott was turned into a theatre show that it began to gain traction.

First adapted by Nick Stafford and originally directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, it became the most successful play in the history of the National Theatre, winning more than 25 major awards, and has been seen by more than 8.3 million people worldwide.

Having returned to Theatre Royal Plymouth this week, it is not hard to see why it has been such a huge hit.

Joey and fellow ‘war horse’ Topthorn are brilliantly brought to life through life-sized puppets which take three puppeteers each to operate them.

While the creation of the puppets are a laudable achievement on its own, it is in the skill of their operation that they take on personalities all of their own.

The horses are not the only animals to grace the stage at the hands of puppeteers, with first swifts flying overhead, and then a cheeky goose running around the farm.

And there is no attempt to conceal the presence of the puppeteers, with the bodies of the horses translucent instead of being made opaque, and the leatherwork ‘bone’ structure deliberately left on the outside.

Far from being incidental, it makes the point that these creatures were never acting of their own free will in being involved in war, but were always in the hands of men.

Yet at the same time you cannot but start to see their characters, such is the ability of their operators.

The National Theatre are known for their ingenuity, and the way in which the stage is turned from field to farmyard and then battlefield with few props or pieces of set cluttering the stage is a salutory lesson to other designers that less can sometimes be more.

Equally, a backdrop displayed on what appears to be a piece of paper torn from an old book is both clever and highly effective in portraying the changing landscape, from bucolic Devon fields to burnt and bloody battleground.

The performances of the likes of Albert (Tom Sturgess) and many of the seeming multitude of cast members more than matches the brilliant standard of design, production and of course puppetry.

The second act, in which a tanks roars on to the battlefield, is another stroke of creative brilliance and shows how warfare fundamentally changed from charging horses to brutal mechanisation during the course of the war.

Whether Joey and Topthorn are a metaphor for the soldiers who were sent into conflict at the bidding of their masters is debatable.
But it is just one of the ways in which this brilliant show will carry on resonating with audiences for a long time to come. Unmissable.

War Horse is showing at Theatre Royal Plymouth until December 7.