Joey, the eponymous hero of War Horse, is surely one of British theatre’s most magical creations. On encountering the enormous beast a sort of myopia descends on the viewer and you stop seeing the three performers it takes to operate the puppet (here Rianna Ash, head, Chris Milford, heart and Thomas Goodridge, hind). All you see is Joey.
It’s a magic that original directors Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris harnessed to turn Nick Stafford’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel into the most successful play in the history of the National Theatre.
This revival, led by Tom Morris with revival director Katie Henry, retains the power that made the stage show a phenomenon after its 2007 debut.
It famously took several years to develop under then artistic director Nicholas Hytner, the National’s workshop spaces supporting the directors to work with South African company Handspring to solve the problem of how a non-speaking puppet horse could hold the emotional heart of a production. It held it then and it holds it still.
The story faithfully follows Morpurgo’s novel, with young Albert raising Joey, who we first meet as a nervous foal, on his family farm in Devon. As Joey and Albert bond, their world is turned upside down when church bells ring out the start of the first world war. Joey is sold to the military by Albert’s unsentimental drunken father and dispatched to the frontline. Albert follows him to France, dreaming of a reunion and eventually hoping for only survival.
This latest production is a reminder of the power of the piece, but also the power of collectivity. The audience collectively believe that Joey the horse is breathing, grunting and sweating as he tries to drag a plough through the fields of Devon and then a gun through war torn France and it is our collective belief that breathes life into Joey. The story itself is also about collectivism.
A tale of a young boy sent off to war at the behest of allegedly greater men has a visceral impact and is perhaps more relevant than it has ever been. The occasions when the Germans and the British encounter each other as individuals and see each other’s humanity is a gut punch reminder of the futility of war and how, throughout history, it is always the poor and “lower” classes who pay the heaviest price.
As Albert Narracott, Tom Sturgess undergoes a remarkable transformation. Starting out as a boy, come the end of the war his mother, Rose, played with grounded emotion by Jo Castleton, declares him a “man on a horse”. It’s a simple and devastating summation of Albert’s appalling journey.
War Horse is an example of every creative department working at its apotheosis. Video projection above the stage on what looks like a page roughly torn from a book is a smart piece of design and a wonderful canvas, the direction is assured and Rob Casey’s lighting design is simply extraordinary.
Once again it will run and run.
• At The Lowry, Salford until 28 September, then touring
• This article was amended on 23 September 2024 to make clear that lighting on this tour was by Rob Casey. An earlier version credited Paule Constable, who designed the original lighting.
