This evening, Kelpie took her Guides to see War Horse. They had a spare ticket, so I tagged along. It's not really my sort of thing, and I wouldn't have paid to see it, but for free is a different matter.
It's one of those shows that seems to exist purely to give drama teachers something to take their students to. Textbook stuff from begining to end.
The show really is saved by the puppetry, which is amazing. The horses are operated by two people inside, and a third "leading" the horse, who operates the head. This does mean, unfortunately, that you end up with eight legged horses. I would have had the guys on the inside wear black, rather than period costume.
The battle scenes are pretty well done, with lots of cheesey slow motion that isn't at all inspired by Blackadder Goes Forth. One minor gripe I have is that when a Mk 1 tank turns up, it moves across stage faster than the horse. Those things were slower than walking pace!
Ability to suspend disbelief = ruined.
I was surprised to find that large chunks of the dialougue in the second act take place in German and French, with no translation. Top marks for realism, it wasn't too hard to get the gist of what was going on, even if I couldn't understand the exact words. The only other way to do it would be the
Allo Allo method of speaking English in exagerated accents.
The ending -<SPOILER ALERT>- I found hard to swallow. It would have been a much more powerful, and infinitely more realistic, play had the horse not survived.
The lighting was a salute to the humble PARcan, I don't think I've seen so many used in one place since Queen last played Wembley Stadium.
There was automation where it was needed, but it didn't dominate. The projectors were unfortunately far too weedy, and I could barely see the sketches they were projecting on to the set. The show makes great use of haze and smoke effects, especially the scene where they get gassed.
Overall, it's a very well staged production. Just a bit to far fetched of an ending for my tastes. The Guides seemed to love it though. Many of them were bawling their eyes out as we left... despite the happy ending? I will never understand the female obsession with horses. It's disturbingly Freudian if you ask me.