Why National Theatre brace is good news for audiences here
Theatre Royal stages War Horse and Dear England
No prizes on offer to any passer-by for guessing the big autumn season opener at the Theatre Royal, what with it being festooned with promotional material for War Horse.
The global mega-hit which took puppetry to new levels is taking up residence for a September fortnight on Grey Street and chief executive Marianne Locatori could hardly be more delighted.
“It’s such a beautiful, poignant story and it’ll look stunning on our stage. People might have seen it before but it’s a phenomenal production that really transports you.
“That’s the beauty of theatre – and also why this show keeps getting brought back.”
She has every reason to regard it with particular fondness.
The first UK tour of War Horse, back in 2013 after it had been wowing audiences at the National Theatre and in the West End, opened at Plymouth Theatre Royal where Marianne was director of marketing and communications at the time.
Smiling, she recalls: “We’d had a six-month refurbishment of the theatre’s front of house areas and re-opened the building by opening that tour… so the pressure!
“I was also pregnant and had to go off and have my now nearly 12-year-old son.”
War Horse was regarded as a local story, too. Michael Morpurgo, who wrote the book the show was based on (and famously said he thought the National Theatre “must be mad” to think of adapting it) lived – and still lives – in Devon where he found the inspiration for it.
But there’s a powerful North East link, too. Ten years ago the author and former Children’s Laureate – Sir Michael since he was knighted in 2018 – donated all his manuscripts to Seven Stories for safekeeping.
The original version of War Horse, handwritten in school exercise books, has resided in its archive in Newcastle ever since, along with his other prolific outpourings.
But while the story of Joey, the unwitting four-legged First World War combatant, is well-known and the show well-travelled, this will be its first ever visit to the city.
Until recently it was only able to visit the biggest stages (you might have caught it in another city not a million miles away) – and the Theatre Royal, unlike others, has a raked stage, meaning a slight forward tilt.
Great for audience sight lines, points out Marianne. A challenge, though, for shows which require a level playing field, which brings us to a second National Theatre show heading our way this autumn.
This is Dear England, James Graham’s play about Gareth Southgate and his men’s football team which several times had its eye on the prize only to fall agonisingly short (in a way which could have been called typically English until the Lionesses showed how it should be done).
A more recent National Theatre hit, having premiered in 2023, it too is Newcastle-bound for the first time.
Marianne is a fan. Not of any particular football team, although she did live every second of Newcastle’s recent match against Liverpool on TV: “So gutting – but they did hold their heads high, I think.”
But Dear England, when she saw it in London and again in Salford, induced “little goosebumps”.
She elaborates: “What James Graham’s brilliant at doing is getting under the skin of something and taking you into a world without making it difficult.
“He did it with This House (about the House of Commons) and with Ink (about Rupert Murdoch and the media) and he does it with this.
“Certainly for me, you buy into the passion and desperately want them to win.
“I genuinely loved Dear England. If you love football, it’s an insight into the world of Gareth Southgate and the changes he tried to bring about.
“If you don’t like football, well, it’s so poignant, this man responsible for carrying the hopes of the nation with this one group of players.”
Enhancing Marianne’s pleasure in offering these two shows is that they spring from a longstanding relationship with the National Theatre which she is keen to strengthen.
Both are likely to play to full houses in Newcastle but they’re expensive to tour, “so not money-spinners in that sense.
“For me, yes, it’s the kudos of having the National Theatre come to Newcastle, but also the National Theatre should be touring quality drama that appeals to a popular audience regionally.
“People in Newcastle and the North East should be seeing the National Theatre’s hit shows here and I’m hoping we can make it a more regular occurrence in future.
“That is an ambition and we’re having those conversations, but this is a really good start.”
It’s Marianne who points out that women, for the first time, hold both of the National Theatre’s top jobs, Indhu Rubasingham recently having taken up the post of artistic director alongside executive director Kate Varah.
“Just saying,” says Marianne, clearly cock-a-hoop at what it might augur for the future.
The National Theatre, she says, were keen to bring both shows to Newcastle, going out of their way to make sure War Horse could be accommodated, aided by technological advances and a few judicious tweaks.
“We have good relationships with the top UK producers but we had to talk through some of the challenges with the National Theatre. They came and looked at the stage to see how it could work.
“These are things they have to consider before they take any show on tour.”
National Theatre shows have been staged at the Theatre Royal for many years but Covid dealt a blow to well-laid plans and audience confidence.
“And it’s no secret that drama is harder to sell to a general audience than musicals are,” says Marianne.
“Look at the West End. It’s different to regional theatre but all the leading shows are musicals. People’s tastes change and audiences are discerning.
“They want to know what they’re coming to and don’t necessarily want to take a risk. They want to know they’re going to have a good time, which is perfectly reasonable.”
Not much risk would seem to be attached to War Horse or Dear England, the former having entertained millions and the latter having been enthusiastically reviewed.
And for those who prefer them, a busy programme through the autumn and winter offers musicals aplenty, including Cameron Mackintosh’s big new production of Miss Saigon which does start its tour at the Theatre Royal (October 4 to 25).
In the meantime, tickets are still available for War Horse (September 10 to 20) and Dear England (November 11 to 15) and can be bought via the Theatre Royal website or tel. 0191 2327010.