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War Horse musicians fail in first legal bid to get jobs back
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 16 April 2014
Five musicians made redundant from the West End production of ‘War Horse’ have failed in their first legal bid to get reappointed.
As previously reported, the musicians had their roles in the show cut to just a few minutes of performance time in March last year, and were then cut entirely last month, replaced with pre-recorded music. They argued that their cutting from the production breached contracts they had with the show’s producer the National Theatre, and they went legal last week.
The specific case being considered in court this week was the musicians’ attempt to get an injunction to force the NT to reinstate them while the breach of contract dispute goes through the motions. But a judge said yesterday that he wasn’t persuaded to issue the interim order, even though he thought the claimants’ wider case would be “strong” if and when it reached court.
The five musicians’ legal counsel James Laddie said, according to the BBC: “The claimants have not accepted this breach of their contracts, and have elected to affirm their contracts. They have at all times made it clear that they remain willing and able to attend work and to perform their obligations under their contracts”.
But representing the NT, David Reade, denied any breach of contract had occurred, adding: “The orchestra was not an integral part of the play, and indeed there is no live band in any other production [of ‘War Horse’] around the world”.
The five claimants are backed by the Musicians’ Union in their fight, and its Assistant General Secretary Horace Trubridge said yesterday: “We are disappointed not to have been granted an injunction, which would have seen the War Horse band return to the show this week. The NT argue that it would not be workable for the musicians to return to work a month after they were removed. A case which we refute. The band could go back into the show tonight, if the NT permitted it. The musicians have fulfilled their side of the bargain and the NT has broken its promise to employ them until the production closes”.
He added: “Had we won, we would have established a new legal precedent and this was possibly our best chance of ensuring our members’ contracts were honoured. However, the fight is far from over and we believe the band has an extremely robust breach of contract claim for the NT to answer”.
