Horsepower for techno teens

How do you get the MySpace generation excited by the theatre? Critics are calling War Horse - based on the novel by former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo and aimed at the over-12s - one of the most enjoyable nights of their lives. On Tuesday, the beautifully rendered production, a collaboration between set designer Rae Smith and the South African puppet company, Handspring, won Best Design at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

But it's all very well pleasing adults. Does it actually pass the teen test? My companion for the evening, Gemma Hodges, 13, from Walthamstow, had only been to the theatre once before.

She couldn't understand why we weren't going to see real horses on stage. I found myself getting absurdly nervous, babbling on about the directing credentials of Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris. Gemma smiled politely and had to remind me she's not actually old enough for a white wine yet.

As the curtain rose, she didn't look too impressed by the puppets - the horses looked awkward, the duck on wheels, frankly childish. In a world of computer-generated perfection, why would she want to watch something hand-made?

But over the two and a half hours, something miraculous happened. She fell in love. "It's wicked!" she told me in the interval. "I started to feel as if the horses were real and I felt sorry for them."

Act II reduced us both to tears. Gemma came out wanting to know everything about life for the soldiers in the trenches. "It seemed more real than in a film," she explained.

All around us in the foyer, teens were buzzing and screaming. It was more like a rock concert than a middle-class family outing. "Is it always like this afterwards?" I asked the staff in the bookshop. "Always," they groaned. "But don't knock it."

Some £10 seats are available from the box office, in person, on the day of performance from 9.30am (020 7452 3000).

War Horse
National Theatre: Olivier
South Bank, SE1 9PX