Sunny Monday

Hooray for the sun, its been a bit overcast these last few weeks so its a great change to actually see the sun come out for more than ten minutes. I am feeling a bit better today, finally got some good medication that has been slowly battling this cold away. Its our last full week in London can you believe it? Today we are having class, and then headed to the British Silver Vaults which should be neat, hopefully I can see a lot of stuff I cannot afford but I guess there are some areas where you can buy some of the silver from the vault, and then hopefully trying to make it to the Tower of London later on in the afternoon if my cold holds out.

So this weekend we were able to see two shows, first War Horse on Friday and A Little Night Music on Saturday evening. A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim was great and the vocals of that cast were amazing but I have to say that War Horse by far has been the best production I have seen in London so far, which is saying a lot because pretty much everything we have seen has been fabulous.

This production was INCREDIBLE, and the highlight of the show was the puppets that were used throughout the production, in particular the horses themselves. These horses were lifesize so they were HUGE, and we were sitting in the FRONT row and I swear a few times the horses galloped towards us and I backed up in my seat because they were so close. The horses were very lifelike too, you could actually see them breathing and it took 3 puppeteers to man the things. Two men were visible under the horse moving his legs and tail, and one puppeteer was at the front moving his head and making all of the horse type noises. There were also small bird puppets, a goose, vultures, and this INCREDIBLE tank puppet that you can see in the image gallery that was wheeled out during one of the scenes on this immense trolley. I have no idea where all these puppets were stored behind the scenes because all of the puppets were incredibly large.

The story is about a boy named Albert Naracotte and his horse Joey during the first great war. Albert is 17 and cannot join the Devon military yet to fight the french but unknowingly his father sells Joey to the military to become a officers horse for 100 pounds. After a year of remaining behind waiting for Joey to return Albert runs off and joins the army himself to save his horse. Along the way Joey meets another horse Topthorn and the production is basically about the trials and tribulations these two horses encounter during their journey in the war, and their fight to return home. It was a really touching production and gave me a completely knew insight into the plight of animals during wartimes. It was also a bit of a history lesson because I learned during the first world war about a million horses were sent into battle and only about sixty two thousand were ever brought home, pretty sad when you think these animals had to fight a war that they had no part in.

Anyway this production was just amazing and the acting and puppeteering were awesome. Hopefully you guys will check it out and see for yourselves.
Have a great Monday!
SBC