As War Horse returns to the National Theatre, we go behind the design

‘How do you design something that holds the space, as well as allowing for a fluidity and pace of storytelling?’ asks designer Rae Smith, who has considered the question upon the return of War Horse to the National Theatre in London (until 30 July 2026).

Smith, who has overseen the drawings, costume and set design for the play, won the Tony for Best Scenic Design of a Play in 2011 and sees the show’s return to the stage as a chance to rework the finer details. ‘Every couple of years we come back to the show to make it better and better, because we all love it,’ she says.

Michael Morpurgo’s novel, on which the play is based, follows a horse, Joey, who is shipped to France to be part of the cavalry in the First World War. The play originally premiered at the National Theatre in 2007, transferring to the West End in 2009, where it remained until 2016. It has toured globally since, now returning to its first home on the fan-shaped Olivier stage in the brutalist enclave of the National Theatre.

Joey the horse, controlled by three puppeteers from the Handspring Puppet Company, commands the stage, the centre of a design left purposely clean to allow for Joey’s ‘living, breathing’ idiosyncrasies. ‘It's not so much a set, it's more an environment,’ Smith says. ‘It captures all of the players in it, and the context is so fast you don’t need a piece of scenery every 30 seconds. The Olivier is a great space for storytelling, where someone can stand on stage and address a large audience quite intimately, and consequently the audience can see them in detail quite intimately as well.’

Smith uses screens to express the all-encompassing nature of the First World War, with her drawings acting as a scenic backdrop, or a way of enhancing battles on stage. There was always the intention for the screen to be used for shadow puppets, with some of the background stories playing out in shadow. ‘What was important was the idea that we were telling our great-grandfathers’ stories, because it came very much from the heart,’ Smith says. ‘It is like I am a visual diarist all the way through, and consequently my diary style went from quite sedate landscapes, countryside loveliness, to more expressionist and full of charcoal and foreboding as [the characters] hit France.’

As the characters go into battle, the drawings become almost vorticist in style, the landscapes dissolving into abstraction as the social order is obliterated. The sense of terror is shaped by the art and the dual purpose of the screens. ‘When we talked about the initial idea of the screen with animated shadow silhouettes, we discovered that the shadow puppets were so full of adrenaline that they were shaky when projected up to four or five times the size.’ Smith built on this emotion, also creating a tank that was like a shadow puppet.

‘I handed that over so that its movement would be exaggerated by animators, so you could have a tank followed by a whole collective of tanks, coming over the hills towards the horses.’ Through this intertwining of mediums, the battle comes to life. ‘When the tank spins round, we get the shadowing into animations as well, to give the sense of the mortal excitement for the end – the feelings of the battlefield, basically.’

War Horse is at the National Theatre until 30 July 2026, nationaltheatre.org.uk