The thoroughbred phenomenon returns

The new tour of War Horse gallops into Milton Keynes Theatre this April. The powerful National Theatre production is inspired by Sir Michael Morpurgo’s best-selling novel which has sold more than 35 million copies world-wide since being published a little more than 40 years ago.

The story is a captivating one, but so too is the backstory of this literary thoroughbred.
“I was born in 1943 in London, so I was aware, very early on in my life, what war did to the flesh,” the author explains.

“A gentleman called Eric Pearce used to come to tea with us. He was a lovely man and I knew that he was a war hero. He had been a Fleet Air Arm pilot. He was very smart, but he had terrible burns on his face, an ear and fingers missing and only one eye. Mother always told me not to stare, but I couldn’t help it.

“Well, Eric lived to be almost 100 and I kept up with him. On my last visit to him I apologised for staring at him as a child. And he said something rather wonderful: ‘I remember very well indeed. And I liked it. What I never liked was when people looked the other way.’”
The human cost of World War II also showed itself to Sir Michael in his own family – his Uncle Peter, a handsome young actor, lost his life in action.

“The shadow of war hung over everyone long after D Day. We didn’t talk about being depressed, but we’d say that ‘it was difficult to laugh.’”
Michael joined the army himself, motivated by an interest in military history, but unable to square war as being sensible, he left, and went on to become a teacher.

By the mid 1970s, Michael and his wife Clare moved to Devon, and set up the charity, Farms for City Children, enabling children from disadvantaged communities to experience the adventure of working together on farms in the countryside.

A conversation in the local pub with Wilf Ellis, an octogenarian who had served in WWI as a 17-year-old, would ultimately sow the seeds for War Horse.

Wilf opened up to Michael one day in The Duke of York in Iddesleigh…

“And Wilf said something that was to become life changing for me. He said ‘I was there with horses.’ He then spoke about his experiences, including how he had been at the bottom of a mud-filled trench when a German soldier carrying a bayonet approached and yet, for some reason, couldn’t follow through.

“He also told me this: ‘All we had was fear. We each dealt with it however we could; some went silent, some screamed and some went mad. What we couldn’t do was talk to each other about it.’ But Wilf told his horse things that he couldn’t tell anyone else. The horse was his best friend. And then he said something I couldn’t quite believe. He said: ‘And that horse, he listened.’”

Discovering that as many horses as men were killed during WWI, an idea came to Michael:
“What if the horse, as a neutral observer, told the tale about the universal suffering of war?”
The idea was there, but Michael wasn’t wholly convinced – until he spotted a young boy, a visitor to his Farms for City Children programme, who was non-verbal, standing by a stable door.

Michael realised that the boy was talking to the horse. “A fellow sentient creature that he trusted, he talked to the horse as a friend. And the horse was listening. It wasn’t sentimental; there was a relationship.”

It proved the spark for Michael to begin writing the remarkable story of a young boy, Albert, and his horse, Joey, set against the backdrop of the First World War.

Upon publication, the book received critical acclaim, but commercial success wasn’t there, and book sales weren’t significant at that time.
And then, more than two decades on, Tom Morris from the National Theatre approached Michael about staging a play.

Since being realised, the production has gone on to be the most successful play in the history of the National Theatre, winning more than 25 major awards.

More than eight million people have so far been moved by this life-affirming drama, and now it’s your turn.

War Horse is at Milton Keynes Theatre from 22 April to 3 May.
To book tickets visit atgtickets.com/miltonkeynes