The Horse's Mouth: Staging Morpurgo's War Horse

by Mervyn Millar

The latest in the series 'The National Theatre at Work' follows the production of War Horse from early concept workshops, through the design and development of the magnificent life-size horse puppets, research of the play's languages and wartime setting, the exploratory process of making the adaptation, rehearsals with the ensemble, and onto the Olivier stage.
Mervin Millar's unique perspective as a member of the creative team and a puppeteer gives an extraordinary insight into the way this stage version of Michael Morpurgo's novel takes audiences on a journey through history.

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going through the process of creating a theater piece out of a children’s novel with a horse as the main character. Creating the puppets, learning horse behavior, staging, music, working with puppeteers & actors for the creation of a fantastic stage piece. The book ends before the process is finished. Better for those who know theater or who have seen the stage play, but still fascinating.
If you haven't seen the stage play, Google "War Horse" and watch some of the YouTube videos. The puppets are lifesize horses manipulated by 3 people and they're built to be ridden.

[Catherine Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who has seen War Horse on stage several times I was super excited to start reading this book. While I did find some of the information really interesting and informative I was hoping that there would be more information about how the show developed, rather than commentary on the specific creators involved. It was still a good book though and one I don't regret reading.