Death Note Musical Opens at Barbican
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- Death Note: The Musical opened at the Barbican, marking its second London appearance after a 2023 run at the Palladium and Lyric
- Adapters Frank Wildhorn (music), Jack Murphy (lyrics), and Ivan Menchell (book) trimmed the 2003 manga's plot to focus on three principals: Light (Xander Pang), L (Colin Ryan), and Misa (Stephanie Zaharis)
- Telly Leung plays apple-munching chaos-deity Ryuk and Grace Mouat plays goth-bride lookalike Rem, described as top-notch support
- The production features athletic ensemble choreography, forced-perspective sets, flashy back projections, and sliding stage elements
- The reviewer characterizes the show as a smart metaphysical whodunnit with emotional intensity cranked up by its power-ballad score, noting the dilution of the original manga's teen-boy appeal
- The audience arrived in cosplay — corseted, gauze-bedecked, and diamanté-festooned — reflecting the source material's fan-cultivated origins across comics, novels, animated TV, feature films, and a 2017 Hollywood treatment
Why it matters: A fan-property musical making a second London run signals that manga/anime adaptations can sustain West End economics — the Barbican staging may greenlight more theatrical adaptations from this genre, as the reviewer notes the Barbican's success could 'see more given the go-ahead.'
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