If you’ve heard of Michael Morpurgo, you probably know about his world famous bestseller turned National Theatre production, War Horse. Perhaps the most famous horse on earth; Joey has been seen on stage by six million people worldwide and is now coming home to Belgium.
Morpurgo is bringing the life-size puppet to two commemorative locations in Ypres today, marking the centenary of not only the first world war, but the famous Christmas truce that took place. We were lucky enough to interrupt his day to talk to him about bringing Joey home.
Michael explained, “We’re doing a concert of a story of my take on the Christmas Truce of 1914. We’re doing it in the place that it actually happened, in Ypres, in Belgium… I’m with the actress Virginia Mckenna, who plays the old lady in this story, and she and I tell the story between us. And we have these wonderful acapella singers called Voices at the Door… they sing [the carols] in French and German and in Flemish and in English. It really represents what this story is all about.”
“Joey may have been born in my mind’s eye, on the farm in Devon where I live. He may have gone to South Africa where he was made - he is still there now, on stage every night in Cape Town. But the roots of his story and my story go back to Belgium. He is in a very real sense coming home.”
Asked if it was strange having Joey go from inside his head to physically in the story’s backdrop, Michael replied that when he saw Joey trotting around Menin Gate, “you feel very moved, because he seems to have come to represent all victims of war, be they animal or human.”
