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Post-pandemic the ‘big summer musical’ has become tradition at the Barbican: the iconic arts centre has staged one every year since 2021.
This year, it’s one-upping itself and putting on two. It was announced some time ago that the first half of the summer would see it stage Cole Porter’s High Society, in a production that’s the spiritual sequel to the smash production of Porter’s Anything Goes that ran in 2021 and 2022.
That’s definitely one for the ‘classic musicals’/‘bring your nan’ crowd.
The second half of the summer is given over to something rather different in the form of Death Note. It will be a new musical adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s hugely successful ’00s manga series about a gifted student named Light Yagami who – for Reasons – is given an enchanted notebook that will kill anyone whose name is written in it within 40 seconds. Now convinced he is basically a god, Yagami reshapes the world as he sets about eliminating its criminals. Baffled at events, the authorities turn to enigmatic master detective L to try and get to the bottom of the killings.
It’s a fairly unusual set up for a musical, but to be fair no more so than Cats, and this adaptation by Frank Wildhorn, Jack Murphy and Ivan Menchell has in fact been kicking around in various Asian productions for the last 10 years, with a concert version of it staged over here a few years back. Now, though, it gets by far its biggest Western production to date as it moves into the Barbican for six weeks in a new version directed by Stephen Whitson, with design by Jon Bausor, who did the honours for the stage version of Spirited Away.
Death Note the Musical is at the Barbican Centre Jul 31-Sep 12. Tickets go on sale Mar 4.
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