War Horse
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Keith Bruce
The horses are, as you must have heard, terrific. Sat on an aisle in the stalls, hero Joey passed within inches of my shoulder and the feeling of bulk and weight that the three operators create in the beast was palpable - "puppetry" is almost a misleading term. But let's hear it for the birds - welcoming swallows, a clown goose (wheeled around by Joseph Richardson) and the conspiracy of carrion crows on the battlefield - that also make this adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's book so special.
Comprehensively upstaged by all this animation, not excluding the projections of Rae Smith's drawings above, it is perhaps unsurprising that some of the human performances tend towards the shrill. If the first half includes some shouting across the minimal set of village auction and farmstead, it all goes a bit 'Allo 'Allo after the interval, as Martin Wenner's German officer and others try to convery the incomprehensibility of one side to the other, and the invaded French.
But to nitpick over the script and some of the acting is really beside the point. Like teenage soldier Albert Narracott (Lee Armstrong) the narrative follows the titular horse to the horror of the Western front, and the sound-and-light design and Adrian Sutton's music, effectively contrasting with the songs of the time that John Tams has given to Bob Fox, make sure that the relentless barrage and brutal weaponry of war are eloquently conveyed. So too are Morpurgo's messages - the usefulness of an immigrant (draughthorse/thoroughbred) crossbreed, the importance of being true to your word, and the indiscrimate effects of mechanisation among them - in a piece of theatre that is stylishly effective and movingly compelling.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article