The National Theatre’s unmissable war epic has returned to The Lowry to showcase a production brimming with gentle beauty and anchored by war.
Michael Morpurgo’s stunningly adapted novel spotlights courage, faith and community as a treacherous mission to bring home a beloved family friend plays across the eruption of World War One. Driven by an unbreakable bond, Morpurgo’s narrative highlights the horrors of the Great War while offering a stirring tribute to the people and horses who lost their lives.
After Albert’s (Tom Sturgess) family horse, Joey is sold to the British Cavalry, the pair embark on separate journeys of survival and connection. As Joey encounters the Western Front, the defiant Albert, being too young to enlist in the army, plans to head to the battlefields of France to find Joey and bring him home. Playing in the shadows of a stark set, the story quickly pulls you into their reality through their sincere performances.
Tom Morris’s direction guides the Lowry audience through the sweeping story that utilises a smorgasbord of puppets to balance the serene and nestled farmlands of Devon, to the ravaged trenches of WWI France. The masterfully crafted Joey is brought to the stage through the magic of multiple puppeteers and their committed performance immediately captures your imagination. The Handspring Puppet Company ensemble gracefully build on the story's tension using vivid and ingenious mechanisms that would leave the life-sized Joey deflated without them.
War Horse offers the best use of puppeteering since Avenue Q, with intense performances amplified by live folk singer Sally Swanson. Rianna Ash, Chris Milford and Thomas Goodridge breathe life into Joey, motioning everything from his lively gallop to the tiny swish of his tail. Their subtlety captures his essence and helps form the emotional core of the production, which relies on you believing in Joey’s strength and perseverance. Sturgess’s performance is equally compelling as Albert, as his sheltered life is quickly tested during his relentless search. Rae Smith's minimalist set design pulls focus on Sturgess’s heartfelt performance and keeps the saga utterly grounded. Battling through the brutality and futility of war, Smith’s effective use of lighting and projections that spread the landscape across a shredded background, homes in on the pair’s personal, splintered journeys as their narratives weave apart.
Without the use of complex visuals and multiple props, War Horse serves a poignant and gripping journey. Despite premiering in 2007, the emotional pull of Albert and the Handspring Company has made this unique production an enduring success. It is a show with so much heart and its deeply moving storytelling will ensure that audiences will always remain anxious to reconnect with Joey.
Tickets are available via the Lowry link