At the Theatre

Saturday, May 14, 2011
This was a pretty quiet day for us and we both agreed that was just fine. We did a little walking about Soho and Chinatown and had a very nice lunch in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.
The big event of the day was going to the theatre. When we were talking with our friends in Eastbourne last week, we suggested they come to London and go to a Shakespeare play at the Globe Theatre with us. They said that there was a wonderful play at the New London Theatre that they had seen and that we should see. The play is a drama called "War Horse" We saw it this afternoon. An aside to Jilayne, Jeffry, and Tim's brother, Steve. This is the theatre where we saw "Cats". The play is a regular sell-out but we were fortunate to get "return tickets" about an hour and a half before curtain time. The play was amazing. It is the story about a young English boy who has a horse. His father, unbeknownst to the boy, sells the horse to the army as a "War Horse" during WW I. The horse ends up being captured by the Germans and the boy ends up running away from home and lying about his age to join the army in hopes of finding his horse. It has a bit of an equine "Ol' Yellar" feel to it. The horses in the play were incredible. They were life size puppets worked by three people for each horse. The person working the horses head also did the noises for the horse. The puppet work was so lifelike that we commented at the interval that after a short time you thought of them as real animals. It was a very emotional play, particularly the second act that had many battle scenes from the war. The boy and the horse finally reunite in the last scene of the play. "War Horse" is another excellent example of what a magical place the theatre can be.
Hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Ta.