The element that really brings the whole adaptation together are the horses: it's fair to say that the success of the stage adaptation hinged on them. The theatre's solution was smart, smooth, and breathed new life into Morpurgo's classic. The theatre's solution was smart, smooth and breathed new life into Morpurgo's classic. Trying to bring to life a story that relies so heavily on animals is never an easy job. However, as a play it's a different matter entirely. As a children's book, the use of the horse as a narrator is a smart way of telling the stories of the frontline in a way that isn't too traumatising for its target audience. War Horse is narrated by a horse called Joey as he goes through life in the 1910s, first as a farm horse and then on the front lines of the First World War, and the attempts of his first owner, Albert, to get him back. Even Morpurgo himself reportedly said that “they must be mad” to attempt a stage adaptation when the idea first came about. Staging a much-beloved book as a play creates enough pressure – when the book in question involves a multitude of horses as the backbone of the story, the challenge rises to a whole new level. On paper, adapting Michael Morpurgo's modern children's classic War Horse into a stage play seems like a very tall order.
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