"War Horse" National Theatre production.
Nottingham Royal Concert Hall.

This was the play that I've been looking forward to seeing for the past 18 months or so, and I tell you what, it was well worth the wait. I'd heard so many excellent reports of "War Horse" and every single one of them were true.

The young horse was bought in an auction when Ted Narracott out bids his brother, Arthur, using the mortgage money of $39.00. This obviously doesn't go down well back at home and his son, Albert is then given the job of looking after the horse, now named Joey.

Arthur then makes a bet with Ted which involved the horse being able to pull a plough within a week, which Albert trains Joey to do, winning the horse for himself.

As war comes, Ted sells the horse to the war behind Albert's back for $100. Albert is resigned to bring Joey back from the war which involves signing up for war, even though he is too young.

"War Horse" exceeds other theatre productions, for me, on two accounts. The first is the whole depiction of war. It shows the true horrors of the first World War; soldiers being blasted off of their horses, horses being mutilates by soldiers riding them into barbed wire fences, soldiers with limbs blown off and the horror of the whole involvement of war. I may say at this stage that it's not quite as graphic as I've made out but the presentation makes your imagination work overtime.

The second is the amazing puppetry. You soon forget that these horses are puppets and there are people involved in making the magic, and you truly believe there are horses on stage. there's one piece where one horse was put out of its' misery which will really get to you; it did me and you just feel helpless, and then you have to bring yourself back to reality and think "it's a puppet"!

That said, these puppeteers, the award winning Handspring Puppet Company, are incredible. The flicks of the horses' tail, the subtle movements, the mane shaking, the breathing of the horse, every mannerism makes you feel they're exquisite equines in front of your very eyes.

It;s not just the wonderful horse puppets though, as there's the comical goose, the birds in the sky, as well as the savage ones picking at the flesh of the dead soldiers and the horses. Pure theatrical magic.

It's this magic that will get you choked at the end. A lesser individual would have released a tear; I just had dust in my eye making it water. Must have been all that dust from the several gunshots on stage.

Seriously though, this has to be one of the most amazing pieces of theatre of the last however many

years, and you'd have to be inhuman not to be moved by the incredible actors, puppeteers, singers etc, If you allow yourself to invest emotion into this show, you'll leave this theatre drained.

The lighting design (Paule Constable) was spectacular, as was the sound design (Christopher Shutt); both bringing your heart rate down as well as making you jump out of your skin.

Music was beautifully evocative folk music, written by Adrian Sutton and performed live on stage by Bob Fox.

Several times I've built myself up for a piece of theatre and have found that the production fell below what I'd hoped for. This production exceeded anything I could have hoped for. It's a beautiful piece of theatre, which I'm sure that the Directors,

Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris are incredibly proud of. If I was a director and produced a piece like this, I'd be happy to retire knowing that I'd be hard pushed to better it.

I really can't impress on anyone wondering if they should see this show just how much they will love this piece of theatre, as I did. My only disappointment was why so many people in the audience didn't stand to show their appreciation at the end. Maybe they were just a wee bit more reserved than I at showing how much I appreciated the talented actors!

"War Horse" is stabled at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall until Saturday 7 April 2018.