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Theatre

War Horse

Colin Brookes gains ethical understanding from a profound aesthetic experience.

The film and stage adaptations of Michael Morpurgo’s novel War Horse have won international acclaim. One way of understanding the overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience reactions – especially to the play’s puppetry – is to reflect on the aesthetics, and then on the underlying ethics, involved.

In terms of its narrative form, the story is an epic. Set at the outbreak of World War I, young Albert’s horse Joey is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France to embark on an epic journey. But Albert cannot forget Joey, and being too young to enlist, embarks alone on a dangerous mission to find and bring Joey back home to Devon.

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