WHAT THE FOREST KNOWS:
TOTORO AND THE RADICAL ACT OF WONDER

There’s something profoundly radical about a piece of theatre that trusts its audience to believe in wonder. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of My Neighbour Totoro, now enchanting audiences in its West End transfer at the Gillian Lynne Theatre after breaking box office records at the Barbican, is that rarest of theatrical creatures. It is a work so deeply committed to its own sense of magic that it transforms skepticism into surrender.

Tom Morton-Smith’s adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved 1988 Studio Ghibli film displays the kind of theatrical intelligence that makes you lean forward in your seat. It understands that childhood’s relationship to the fantastic isn’t naïve; it is necessary. In the hands of director Phelim McDermott and his collaborators, this story of sisters Satsuki and Mei discovering forest spirits while their mother (Haruka Abe) recovers from illness becomes something more urgent than nostalgia. It is not merely wistful but a declaration of imaginative life as a way to survive.

The production refuses to condescend to either the younger audience members or the adults who have brought them. McDermott, working with puppetry designer Basil Twist, has created what feels like a new theatrical dialect. It speaks fluently in the strange logic of how children see the world and it never abandons its clarity or sophistication. The puppets Twist has crafted do something that even the best theatrical creatures rarely accomplish. They do not merely impress. They dissolve the barrier between stage and heart.

When Totoro first appears, this magnificent rumbling mountain of fur and benevolence, children in the audience gasp in recognition. Adults sit very still, trying to hold back emotions they were not expecting. Twist said Totoro needs to feel like something you want to sleep on, something soft enough to cradle a dream. The production delivers exactly that sensation. The atmosphere in the theatre quietly shift.

The young performers playing Satsuki (Ami Okumura Jones) and Mei (Mei Mac) are remarkable. You do not watch them act grief and protectiveness. You watch them inhabit it. Mei’s fierce curiosity and Satsuki’s half-child, half-parent vigilance are not just traits. They are how children hold themselves together when everything around them begins to tilt. Their mother’s illness remains largely unspoken but its weight is unmistakable. It lingers like the rustle of leaves outside the house.

For the adults in the room, this story lands in a different register. We are not simply remembering childhood. We are mourning it. And we are mourning everything else that adulthood brings with it. The creeping fragility of the people we love. The erosion of the natural world. The sense that perhaps the forest no longer wants to answer back. Tom Pye’s set design becomes an act of reverence. The trees are not just scenery; they breathe and respond. Pye was right to reject synthetic materials. Oak veneer and steel create a world that feels rooted and present. Jessica Hung Han Yun’s lighting design, already awarded and rightly so, performs quiet miracles. The moment when the planted seeds swell and grow into a towering tree before vanishing at sunrise is not merely metaphor; it feels like memory. You believe it even if you have never seen it before.

And yet, not everything works. The catbus, so beloved in the film, arrives as a sleek and stylized theatrical device but lacks the plush physicality of the other puppets. It is technically impressive and it moves with precision, but the sensation of touch disappears. The sense of intimacy the production so carefully cultivates briefly gives way to cleverness. It is a small falter, but in a world built on breath and felt presence, it stands out.

Still, the show’s commercial prospects are significant. With six Olivier Awards already secured, including Best Director and Best Entertainment or Comedy Play, a transfer to Broadway feels more likely than not. Over 290,000 tickets sold in London. A globally recognized and adored source film. Puppetry that translates perfectly into digital visuals and viral clips. Most importantly, a piece of family theatre that respects the adults in the room and does not rely on winks or sugar. This is not a novelty; it is a gift. Broadway has welcomed works like this before. Matilda, The Lion King, and Peter and the Starcatcher have all shown that there is an audience for this kind of material. Totoro could thrive in that space.

Concerns remain. The production’s two-and-a-half-hour running time may be too long for young American children. The pacing, adapted closely from the film, can feel unhurried to a fault. Yet maybe that is part of its value. It asks for patience. It asks you to wait. To feel the boredom that makes way for discovery. It is not about keeping you alert. It is about reminding you what stillness can offer.

This is not a franchise exercise. It is not a brand extension dressed up in furs and nostalgia. It is a delicate and carefully made collaboration between artists and institutions and cultures. Somehow, it never feels industrial. It feels organic. Joe Hisaishi’s score, newly orchestrated by Will Stuart, merges seamlessly into the world of the play. It does not dominate. It breathes. It listens.

They are hyping it as the theatrical event of 2025. That may be true, but sitting there in the quiet presence of a creature who says nothing and still seems to explain how to live, you are not thinking about headlines. You are thinking about dirt and trees and your mother and something in your chest that you had forgotten how to name. The spell is not flawless, but neither is memory, and this show stays with you in the same strange way.

My Neighbour Totoro plays at the Gillian Lynne Theatre through March 2026. Broadway producers have time to move. They would be wise not to wait. There is a forest on the other side of the pond, and it is waiting to be seen.

photos by Manuel Harlan

My Neighbour Totoro
Royal Shakespeare Company, in collaboration with Improbable and Nippon TV
Gillian Lynne Theatre, 166 Drury Lane, Holborn, London
2 hours 30 minutes, including a 20-minute interval
booking through 26 March, 2026
for tickets (from £25), visit Totoro Show