National Theatre Live: War Horse

I went to this with a group of people who thought it was wonderful and delightful, while I found it tedious an not compelling.

The story is: Boy finds horse Boy loses horse Horse causes world peace Boy finds horse again for a tearful homecoming

Within this fairly trite framework could have been an interesting story, but the script replaced drama with melodrama. The plot development wasn't just uncomplicated. It was simplistic. The good Germans were just like the salt of- the- earth British, but the bad Germans were frothing and unhinged certified animal haters.

There was a British folk singer with a nice voice singing late 60s style Pentangle/ Richard THompson British folkie songs that had nothing to do with the story being presented in the play. In the songs a ploughboy meets a girl, and John Barleycorn rises from the grave. Now, that might have been a more interesting movie.

The acting was not up to British stage standards, with the mother and the German cavalry officer being particularly wooden. Only the British Sargent playing the gruff- but- kindly stereotypical sarge with a nice comedic touch rose above tawdry tedium.

The real stars were supposed to be the animal, played by clever puppets, but, in essence, it was like low tech CGI in that all effort seemed to be spent on the puppets, while the script and acting suffered.

However, I was in the minority. Everybody else thought it was fantastic.