War Horse

I finally went to see War Horse which is now on at the New London Theatre in Drury Lane. I recommend it although it is much grittier than I'd imagined and I wouldn't advise taking young children along as it may give them nightmares! The best thing about it is the puppetry: huge puppet horses which come to life, twitching their ears and licking themselves. The story is corny in parts: the "bad" cousin is killed, the hero survives; the love of a horse transcends the war and creates the same emotions in English, Germans and French alike; the scene at the end where the boy finds his horse. I liked the way German and French were spoken on stage rather than using English with foreign accents which could have risked farce. I loved the goose puppet and the Sergeant-Major. My main disappointment was the ending: it was too abrupt.