War Horse Launch

 Today myself and Emma Jefferies attended the launch of War Horse at the Mayflower theatre Southampton. 

I was kindly given this opportunity when the press officer for the theatre invited me. I have also been given tickets to the English National Ballet in two weeks time and The Nutcracker on Ice. 

I love the theatre and to be given this opportunity to report for our course's What's On show has been excellent. 

Plus the Mayflower theatre is beautiful too!

War Horse was outstanding. We heard from the Puppeteer Director Jimmy who gave us an in depth speech about how the horse puppets work. 

It's much more complicated than you think. And that is the art of pupperty. You believe the being is real. These horse puppets made for the show are very life like. 

They perform horse noises and they can even gallop and trot. The puppet mimics exactly what a horse does. 

The puppeteers have been trained in depth. They have even spent time with horses to understand their movement. 

After hearing all about the horses we amazingly got to meet Joey. The main 'War Horse.' 

He walked from the back of the theatre up to the stage. The puppet is worked by three men. One for the head. One for the front legs and one for the back. 

This truly is an art. 

At the end of the launch me and Emma were able to go on stage and interact with the horse. 

We also interviewed the three puppeteers and we interviewed the song man Tim who sings throughout the stage show. 

I couldn't tell you and everyone enough how amazed I was by these puppets. 

Today we got a tiny glimpse of how amazing the stage show is. And there is without any doubt that I would like to see this when the show is on at the Mayflower Theatre Southampton in February next year. 

The video for our what's on 'Access Winchester' show will be up tomorrow. Just you wait!

Eastleigh By-Election:A day with the Labour activists

Labour Campaigning in Hedge End today with Southampton MP  John Denham

A day in the life of a Labour Campaigner...

After 7 hours door knocking with the Labour campaigners I can officially say I am exhausted! It was a brilliant opportunity to see how hard they campaign. 

Eastleigh hasn't have a labour MP since 1944! These people I met today really want to change that.

They hope that the people in Eastleigh are disappointed with the Lib-Dems and Labour wants to split up the Tory and Lib Dem domination especially since Chris Huhme lied to them and they hope to win the votes this time round. 

I door-knocked in Fair Oak and Hedge End. We knocked on around 500 houses in Hedge End and about 160 people told us they would be voting for Labour, they got around 1 in 5 votes. The majority was split between people saying they were undecided with who they would vote for. UKIP seemed to of impressed the Hedge End community with labour votes being in competition with them. 

We also put a stand up in Hedge End village to talk to the people their. Local Southampton MP, John Denham joined in and asked people to write down what it is they want to see change. 

I think door-knocking today was very successful for Labour. The team are then able to see who is likely to vote for them and they can keep in contact with them during the lead up to the vote- this insures they won't lose potential voters. 

The by-election is on the 28th February so vote if you live in the constituencies, its an important decision and it doesn't come around often. 

The person standing for Labour will be announced tonight. 

Candidates:

John O'Farrell, who writer and sometime presenter for Have I got News For You.

Mark Latham, has worked in network television production.

Sarah Rabbits, is a communications professional and consultant who has worked from the BBC and grew up in Surrey.

Southampton Cllr Andrew Pope 

Southampton Cllr Darren Paffey