My Neighbour Totoro: East Asian representation on the British stage

Fans of the Studio Ghibli films will be thrilled by the prospect of the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) landmark new staging of the celebrated animated feature film My Neighbour Totoro. For those who have never heard of this at all, let's briefly fill you in.

Written by Tom Morton-Smith (Oppenheimer), the show is adapted from a celebrated Japanese 1988 animated feature film by Hayao Muyazaki. A partnership between the RSC, Improbable and Nippon TV, My Neighbour Totoro follows the story of sisters Satsuki and Mei as they are transported to a long-forgotten realm of magical beings, spirits and sprites, after moving to be closer to their ailing mother. It has different resonances for every age group: for young children the story is about magical beings, for teenagers it is a didactic coming-of-age tale, and for adults who relate to the protagonists parents the plot is about protecting the ones you love.