WOW! Every fibre of me is still tingling from a sensational experience last night when I was lucky enough to see the National Theatre’s production of War Horse at the Bristol Hippodrome.

What a truly magnificent piece of theatre this was. It ticked all the boxes and was more than deserving of the standing ovation from the audience at the end.

On the surface this adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel doesn’t sound like much at all what with all the brutality of the First World War as the backdrop and a puppet horse taking centre stage.

But it was spellbinding. The audience was hooked from the start where we saw the birth of Joey the foal and followed his story from being bought by a drunken farmer with the family mortgage money, to the unbreakable bond he forms with the farmer’s son, Albert who later enlists in the war to find his beloved horse after it is sold to a cavalry officer and sent to France.

Yes we could see the puppeteers and yet we couldn’t. Of course we knew the horses were not real, or did we?

The skill of the puppetry from members of the Handspring Puppet Company was outstanding. Every ear twitch, the heavy breathing after a gallop, every head shake and all the quirky little habits that horses have, were all there and timed to perfection.

Those horses were every bit real to me and stirred up a gauntlet of emotions to the point where I thought I couldn’t take any more.

I have never much cared for horses finding them unpredictable at the front and back and I don’t much care for the bit in the middle either.

But if it is possible to fall in love with a horse, a puppet horse at that, then that’s what happened last night.

When people talk about the magic of the theatre this is what they mean. We were all there on that stage, mentally, living through the battle scenes and willing Albert and Joey to find each other.

Any production after this, for me, is going to be a hard act to follow. You will kick yourself if you miss it. Tickets are still available and the show runs until February 14.