Studio Ghibli is flying high thanks to its latest movie, The Boy And The Heron, winning an Academy Award for “Best Animated Feature”. While the production house might not be churning out live-action adaptations as quickly as Netflix with the likes of One Piece and Yu Yu Hakusho, Ghibli is still finding ways to present some of their classic stories in brand new ways. Next year, the live-action stage play for My Neighbor Totoro is returning to the West End.
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My Neighbor Totoro’s stage play will return to London’s West End for a series of performances that begin next March and end in November 2025. The first performances for this live-action adaptation arrived in 2022, and it’s clearly been a success since it will get quite a comeback with months of performances next year.
My Neighbor Totoro on The Stage
If you want a closer look at the stage play adapting one of Hayao Miyazaki’s most magical stories, here’s how the live-action adaptation describes its upcoming performance, “Satsuki and Mei’s mother has taken ill. In order to be closer to her while she recovers in a rural convalescent hospital, their father moves the two sisters from their home in a city to the countryside. The house they move into is a ramshackle old place in the shadow of an ancient camphor tree. It is infested with little, sooty creatures that live in the eaves of the attic and underneath the floorboards. Granny Ogaki – one of their neighbours – tells the girls that these are ‘soot sprites’, who dwell in empty and forgotten spaces. They are quite harmless and will move on now the house is inhabited again.”
The description continues, “Granny’s grandson, Kanta, is intrigued by his new neighbours – particularly Satsuki, with whom he’ll be sharing a classroom – but he doesn’t know how to talk to city girls. With father working and mother recuperating, Satsuki takes on more responsibility for herself and her sister. And though the countryside is beautiful and the people friendly, it’s hard not to be scared when the wind rustles the trees at night. As the sisters explore their new surroundings, young Mei encounters magical creatures and the ancient protector of the forest she calls “Totoro” – and they are to be the girls’ neighbours. The initially skeptical Satsuki refuses to believe her, but before long the two girls are caught up in the creatures’ adventures – transported to a long-forgotten world of spirits, sprites and magic.”
