Two plays and a film

I don't go to the theatre often and then I go twice in one week.  I booked to see War Horse back in January and May seemed a long way away.  It's amazing how time flies.  We had good seats in the 8th row of the stalls but really you get a good view from anywhere because the theatre stage/seats are on a curve like the Globe. I knew this play would be moving and as soon as the foal came out I was taken with it and I already felt emotional! I thought 'for goodness sake I'll never survive if I start now!'

I soon forgot that the horses were puppets and I fell in love with them. It was all so real and it really mattered what happened to them.  It was so well done and there were some humorous lines to relieve the tense ones. The play had a lasting effect on me and I couldn't get the story out of my head.  Even the next day just thinking about what  horses went through in France would bring tears to my eyes.  Something like 800,000 horses were shipped to France in World War I and only around 60,000 survived. The horse 'extras' in the play were cleverly made to look like a shadow of their former selves, in a light skeleton body.  At the end when everyone came out to take a bow I wanted the horses to come out too and they did!  I don't think there was a dry eye in the theatre.  The best thing I've seen........worth every hype there's been.

The second show was on the afternoon after War Horse.  We'd been given the tickets by people who could no longer use them.  It didn't sound like my thing at all but Travelling Light  (see trailer) was in fact very funny and well acted. I enjoyed it a lot.  It is a story about the early days of silent  movies seen through the eyes of Moti Mendl who tells stories through film in a remote village.

The following afternoon I went to see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.  What a lovely film, funny and sad and filled with hope. I never did get round to reading the book but saw the trailer for it last time I was at the pictures and the two friends I was with also agreed that that they wanted to see it too.  We all loved it.