Award-winning stage production gallops into MK Theatre next month.
The National Theatre’s global smash-hit production of War Horse, the unforgettable theatrical event based on Michael Morpurgo’s beloved novel, visits Milton Keynes Theatre next month, as part of a major 18-month UK tour.
The stage show has become the most successful play in the history of the National Theatre, winning more than 25 major awards and has been seen by over 8.3 million people worldwide.
War Horse tells the remarkable story of a young boy called Albert and his horse Joey, set against the backdrop of the First World War. This powerfully moving and imaginative drama is a show of phenomenal inventiveness, filled with stirring music and songs, featuring ground-breaking puppetry work by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, which brings breathing, galloping, charging, horses to thrilling life on stage and has inspired a generation of theatre-makers since its premiere in 2007.
At the outbreak of World War One, Joey, young Albert’s beloved horse, is sold to the Cavalry and shipped to France. He’s soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary journey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man’s land. Albert, who remained on his parents’ Devon farm, cannot forget Joey. Though still not old enough to enlist he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.
“It is a huge privilege to be invited to revisit War Horse and to share this powerful story once more with audiences around the country,” said director, Tom Morris.
“Michael Morpurgo’s brilliant idea, to explore the crushing violence of war through the experience of a horse, makes his story as powerful and resonant today as it has ever been. And in this time of increasing commercialism in theatre, it’s worth remembering that the production which carried War Horse to an international audience was a wild experiment, developed through workshops at the National Theatre Studio.
“It has been an enormous thrill to return there in recent months to reunite Adrian Kohler’s magnificent puppets with designer Rae Smith, composer Adrian Sutton and other members of the original cast and creative team to start the process of bringing Joey back to the stage.”
This tour of War Horse marks 110 years since the start of the First World War and follows the 40th anniversary of the publication of Michael Morpurgo’s global best-selling novel, which has now sold over 35 million copies worldwide and in 37 different languages.
“I am so delighted the National Theatre’s iconic production of War Horse is back,” said Michael Morpurgo. “When Covid closed the show down in 2020 in Australia in the midst of its second world tour, many thought, and I was amongst them, that we’d never see War Horse on stage again. Now it’s really happening – we will hear the music and songs, be amazed by its design and lighting, live Joey’s story again.
“War Horse is about the tragedy of war and about a horse and his boy, but it's also so many other things – it's about family and community, courage and loss, hope, and most importantly reconciliation.”
War Horse received its world premiere on 9th October 2007 at the National Theatre, where it played for two seasons before opening at the New London Theatre in March 2009. Since then, it has been seen in 97 cities in 14 countries.
War Horse is at Milton Keynes Theatre from Tuesday 22nd April until Saturday 3rd May.
