awarhorseThen, in the evening, we went to see what had, in effect brought us to London; Nick Stafford’s brilliant adaptation for the stage of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse. The original production, at the National Theatre, seemed to have sold out before tickets even went on sale and it has taken until now for me to get hold of tickets for the West End version. We were not disappointed. It is the most extraordinary piece of theatre and artistry. Without giving too much away, the horses are played by life-size puppets, worked by no less than three puppeteers. But somehow the eye doesn’t see the puppeteers, though they are hard to miss. It is brilliantly done. The story is set around the devastation of the First World War. One statistic illustrates the basic plot line; over one million horses were taken to France from Britain during the war and only 62,000 were brought back. If you get a chance to see this, please go. It is worth a trip to London in itself.