Warhorse

Based on recommendations of a theater-going friend (Thanks Bob Hughes), I got tickets to attend Warhorse. Based on a children's book by Michael Morpurgo, it's a play about, [among many other things], the relationship between Albert, a 16-y-o Devon farm boy, and his horse, Joey. Joey gets sold into the cavalry, experiences trench warfare in France during WW1. Albert runs away from the farm, joins the infantry, survives the ghastly life as a foot soldier, and eventually reunites with his horse. The stagecraft is just about perfect: mechanical more-than-lifesize horses manipulated by 3 puppeteers, live music and minimalist bird puppets that first express the pastoral bliss of Devon in 1912, then the corpse-tearing crows on the 1915 battlefield. An immensely touching story of loyalty. The lighting and soundwork really express that war: machine guns, bayonet fighting, trenchdigging, mustard gas bombs, barbed wire, tanks, the lot. The story really resonates with me. My grandfather, Alexander Donaldson, was a "digger", having lied about his age and signed up to serve in the AIF [Australian Infantry Forces], first at Gallipoli, and later in France, where he was gassed. I never met him, as he'd died of pneumonia, like hundreds of other Australian WW1 veterans, many years before I was born. Fictional Albert could easily have been my grand dad. It was very meaningful personally.

The show will be coming to NY's Broadway soon, and apparently Steven Spielberg has optioned the movie rights. There's a short clip from the show on the National Theater website.

My ticket cost £37.50 from the box office. When the show ended and we poured out into Covent Garden, the place had a real party atmosphere. Friday's weather was superbly sunny and 23 degrees C. Everyone seems to be spilling out of the pubs enjoying the start of the first real sunny weekend this summer. The photo in this post is The Lamb, a typical London pub in Bloomsbury. The pub signs around the city are very distinctive and often very charming. I seem to be taking quite a few photographs of these shingles.