WAR HORSE to embark on major UK tour from September 2024

Photo credit: Brinkhoff/Moegenburg

The National Theatre’s global smash-hit production of War Horse will embark on a major 18-month UK tour from 5 September, touring through to 2026.

Opening at the New Wimbledon Theatre, War Horse will then tour to Salford, Southampton, Canterbury, Sunderland, Plymouth, and Oxford, with future dates and venues to be announced.

War Horse, adapted by Nick Stafford and originally directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, has become the most successful play in the history of the National Theatre, winning more than 25 major awards and has been seen by over 8.3 million people worldwide. This all-new tour is co-produced with Michael Harrison, Fiery Angel, and Playing Field.

War Horse tells the remarkable story of a young boy called Albert and his horse Joey, set against the backdrop of the First World War. This powerfully moving and imaginative drama is a show of phenomenal inventiveness, filled with stirring music and songs, featuring ground-breaking puppetry work by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, which brings breathing, galloping, charging, horses to thrilling life on stage and has inspired a generation of theatre-makers since its premiere in 2007.

Director Tom Morris said: “It is a huge privilege to be invited to revisit War Horse and to share this powerful story once more with audiences around the country. Michael Morpurgo’s brilliant idea, to explore the crushing violence of war through the experience of a horse, makes his story as powerful and resonant today as it has ever been. And in this time of increasing commercialism in theatre, it’s worth remembering that the production which carried War Horse to an international audience was a wild experiment, developed through workshops at the National Theatre Studio, the unique theatre laboratory where ground-breaking hits from Coram Boy and London Road to The Witches were devised. It has been an enormous thrill to return there in recent months to reunite Adrian Kohler’s magnificent puppets with designer Rae Smith, composer Adrian Sutton and other members of the original cast and creative team to start the process of bringing Joey back to the stage.”

Creative development for the tour is being led by Tom Morris with revival director Katie Henry, featuring reimagined designs by Rae Smith, additional music by Adrian Sutton, puppet design and fabrication by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler for Handspring Puppet Company, lighting by Rob Casey, movement and horse choreography by Toby Sedgwick, puppet direction by Matthew Forbes, animation and projection design by Nicol Scott for 59 Productions, songmaking by John Tams, sound by Christopher Shutt, and casting by Jill Green CDG.

Casting is to be announced.

Tickets go on sale for select touring venues on 29 February here.