Birmingham Hippodrome Illuminates 25th- 27th October

As much as I love sitting in a warm, comfortable theatre auditorium, surrounded by the excited buzz of the surrounding audience. It is such a treat, every now and again to wrap up warm, stand outside and explore the city through the alternative variety of entertainment that illuminates the charms of this city. 

Not to mention, as a student the word FREE is highly appealing...

Click here  to see the schedule 

Last Night I started my night at The Laterns of Terracotta Warriors Exhibition. This exhibition can be found in the Gallan Car Park on Hurst Street (You can just follow the arrows). As the sky outside became darker and darker, the impressive lantern statues of the warriors glowed brighter and brighter.  

Lantern art is a traditional art form in China and takes a lot of careful and delicate work to get the details just right. Xia Nan is the creator of this lantern army and make sure you go up close to each of these warriors to appreciate the intricate details of the facial expressions. 

This exhibition was originally created for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. 

Our next stop was Body in Motion 360° Panoramic Cinema Experience. Based in the Arcadian, enter this dome shaped tent and sit yourself on the floor. Don't get to comfortable because you'll find your self spinning around to follow the story that unfolds all he way around you. This is most certainly suitable for the whole family. I was just as enthusiastically wriggling around on the floor as any of the other children. 

Finally we ended our night outside the Hippodrome watching, Flaming Oz, This is a dance duo with a fiery twist. Despite the rain that decided that to drizzle down at the moment is began, the ooing and ahhing of the audience showed just how excitable the audience were and all for a good reason too. 

I'm heading back over there tonight for a second dose. 

Interview with Michael Morpurgo - Author of the book

Although he was born after the war, author of War Horse, Michael Morpurgo, grew up surrounded by the ghosts of the war. He tells how when sat in a pub one day, a painting caught his eye. The painting was a cavalry charge and an old man in the pub told him about his experience in the war and what happened to all the horses he loved. This was the seed that was planted into Morpurgo's mind and grew into the story of War Horse... 

We had such a fascinating time talking to him and only wish that we had more time, you can listen here to our interview!

War Horse 16 October - 9 November

War Horse has got to be one of the most touching stories I have ever had the pleasure of seeing on stage. Despite the brutality and inhumanity of  World War One, Joey the horse reminds everyone both on and off  stage of compassion, an emotion often buried in the ruins of a war. 

The story, based on the book by Michael Morpurgo [Click here to listen to the interview], tells the tale of Joey and his friend Albert and their friendship undeterred by their parting as Joey gets sold to the British army.  

The puppetry is so tasteful and so beautifully made that it is easy to forget that he is not a real horse, even though you can see the people controlling him. The puppeteers are beyond impressive as they respond to every movement and every sound they hear on the stage. From the twitch of an ear or the flick of the tail, there is no doubt that this horse will capture the hearts of audiences night after night [Click here to read the interview with the heart of the horse, John Leader]. 

The Handspring Puppet Company in South Africa are the talented people behind the puppets in the show. I would love to see more of their work as they have redefined all expectations of what a puppet is and in what context they should be used.

While the horse may have been the focus of the show, that isn't to say that the humans were any less of an asset to this show. The range of emotions through the show whether it was the friendships between Joey and his various owners or the rage of war, there was no doubt that the whole audience was captivated by every moment. You could hear every gasp and see the wave of the audience ripple back at the sound of every gun shot. The way the language divides were dealt with by the characters added some lightheartedness to this play and credit is definitely due here to the actors with their impeccable humor timings in spite of the seriousness of the plot.

Unfortunately yet, understandably tickets for this show are sold out at the Birmingham Hippodrome. I would definitely recommend anyone to find any theatre with a few tickets remaining and go see this show.  

On Friday 8th November, the author of War Horse will be returning to the Hippodrome for a special event, 'Only Remembered' where he will be reading extracts of his book in the lead up to the following Sunday which will be Remembrance Sunday. Click Here for more information. 

Human Cast: James Alper, Lee Armstrong, Peter Ash, Emily Aston, Nisa Cole, Joe Darke, David Fleeshman, Adam Foster, Bob Fox , Jason Furnival, Sean McKenzie, Alex Moran, Suzanne Nixon, Tom Norman, Joseph Richardson, Paul Simpson, Simeon Truby, Martin Wenner.

Horse Cast: Thomas Gilbey, Oliver Grant, Finn Hanlon, Karl Haynes, Karen Henthorn, Steven Hillman, Michael Humphreys, Linford Johnson, Andrew Keay, Rebecca Killick, Tom Larkin, John Leader, Helen Macfarlane, Alex Moran, Suzanne Nixon, Tom Norman, Peter Twose, Richard Vorster.

Interview with John Leader - The heart of the horse

John Leader, a Birmingham born actor who just graduated from East 15 where he trained in Physical Theatre in 2013. He spoke to us about his experiences so far as part of Joey the horse in the War Horse.

How do you make the horse look so lifelike? 

JL: A lot of training. I think is definitely a good place to start. I think working together as three people, a mini ensemble inside a horse just listening because we don't speak inside the horse so all the sounds are made by us. We don't speak so I think to learn a physical vocabulary between three of us that we can listen and breathe together, I think that goes into how to make it work. 

So you respond to whatever is happening rather than scripted sound?

JL: Yeah I think that's the great thing about what we're taught here is how to always be a horse. It sounds very weird, be the horse. There's obviously set choreography because you have to, for safety reasons, you can't have a big huge horse just galloping wherever he wants to gallop, but then a lot of the time we just get to be the horse. Someone drops a bucket on stage, we get to react to it and I think that's the amazing side, no two shows, even though you've watched it, watch this show tonight it will be completely different. We get to respond a lot of the time how we want to respond to what's going on around us.

How long did it take you to get used to it all?

JL: Get used to it? I think we're still getting used to it. No, I mean we're used to it now but we do two weeks rehearsal  just puppeteers when we first start rehearsal and then we do another six weeks with the rest of the cast. It's eight weeks in rehearsals before we then take it on. I think, was a nice base and even when we open we don't know everything about it, we get to learn while being on the job so I think that's an amazing thing as well, we get to still learn while being in the horse. 

One of the things I find impressive is even when you're not moving around on stage, how dto do you get the minute detail of the twitch of an ear or the flick of a tail like a real horse might do?

JL: So, what happens is all three of us each have an emotional indicator chord and they're normally things you pick up on. So the head, they have the ears, so they control the ears so the ears can listen to what is going on to whatever is going on at whatever time. In the heart I get the breathing, so if he's angry, I get a lot of that through the breathing and then in the back they get the tail so they get to swish the tail as well. I control the front legs, the head controls the head and the back controls the back two legs and we also have our emotional indicator so when you bring those things together I think that's when you look at it and you really see a horse.

Did you have to watch real horses to see how they behave?

JL:Yes, so we went to the National Horse Trust and we got to watch horses and I think, for me I was never a huge fan of horses but I can safely say after this I want a horse! I don't know how well it would go down having a horse in Birmingham, just in my back garden running around, I don't think that will be too acceptable. I think when I finish this I'd love to own a horse, I think I've fallen in love with them, they've converted me. 

Check out Joey in action!

Russell Brand - The Messiah Complex

You know when you've built something up in your head so much that you are sure the reality simply couldn't compare? Well this is how I felt after finally seeing Russell Brand on stage after a long on going fan girl crush. 

This was one of those rare occasions where you build something up in your head so much, but the reality is far far better.

Mr Gee was an excellent choice of warm up act I thought. His combination of comedy and poetry was really entertaining. I definitely felt warmed up by the time he was finished. I would definitely recommend everyone to check him out.  

The Messiah Complex is a condition where a person may believe that he is God. Brand looks at his idols Ghandi, Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Jesus Christ. He Explores what is about these men that have made them so great and their image so memorable but reminds everyone that even these men had their flaws. Is it right that these figures have been repackaged to encourage commercialism? 

Brand tackles all these issues so tastefully but that isn't to say that his normal cheeky personality doesn't shine through. He's such a joy to watch whether he is striding around on stage or meandering his way through his loving fan based audience. The laughter just rolled on and on from start to end and I'm not ashamed to say I may have been one of the loudest. 

Brand combines current affairs with ingenious wit and let's not forget, sex!  

Russell Brand is taking his latest stand up tour, The Messiah Complex, worldwide and fortunately enough he will be returning to Birmingham this April! 

CLICK HERE to buy your tickets!

Time Travel hits the Hippodrome as War Horse gallops into Birmingham

On October 25th the Patrick Centre,will enter a time warp and find itself back in the early 20th century rural France.

A family friendly sleepover will take place inspired by the award winning, National Theatre's production of War Horse and as part of a WW1 commemoration. 

Creative Learning & Audience Development Manager, Liz Leck said;

 “In true theatre style, at the end of the night there will be a family performance created on the evening from scratch – we are inviting families to dust off their musical instruments and bring them along! For those less theatrical, the theatre will be recruiting for budding war correspondents and cartoonists to create and publish the first ever copy of the Hippodrome Herald.”

In short, there will be something to appeal to everyone!

The National Army Museum will be sending over some representatives who will be showing artifacts from their handling collection. 

This event is part of Family Arts Festival who organise fun family events nationwide. CLICK HERE to find out what else they are up to. 

Tickets for the sleepover are £20 for children, £30 for adults (There must be a minimum of 1 adult to every 3 children)  and can be booked over the phone on 08443385000*

This event takes place from 7pm, Friday 25 October (last post at midnight) until 8am Saturday 26 October (reveille at 7am).

For more information on this event CLICK HERE or call Liz Leck on 01216893064.


*calls cost from 5p per min, 5% fee and £1 postage applies

War Horse runs from Wednesday 16th October 2013 - Saturday 9th November 2013.