Year 7 and Year 8 travelled to Wimbledon Theatre to watch the National Theatre’s touring production of War Horse. Based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo (Children’s Laureate 2003-2005), the plot follows young Albert and his horse Joey through their experiences of rural life in early twentieth century, rural Devon, through to the end of the First
World War.
The boys were amazed by the life size puppetry in the production, and all soon forgot that they were not watching real horses on stage. As the drama curriculum at Shrewsbury House includes set design and technical theatre, there were also animated discussions during the interval about the lighting and sound used to create exciting effects. Those boys enrolled in the popular Theatre Club were especially interested in how the production had been designed.
The setting of the play links brilliantly to the Year 8 Drama unit currently being studied: Journey’s End, also set in WWI. We have already referred to the production and our understandings of the characters’ experiences to our in class learning.
