How Do You Like Them Apples?
Death Note - The Musical (Barbican) Guest Review by Dr Terror
How different this is from 'My Neighbour Totoro'. While the latter is warm and reassuring, this is dark and thought-provoking. Inspired by a manga (comic) which became an anime (cartoon), it tells the story of Light, a talented young student interested in justice to the point of obsession - an outstanding performance by Xander Pang. Thanks to some supernatural creatures (ghosts? demons?) called shinigami and, in particular, an apple-loving one called Ryuk (masterful menace combined with comic relief by Telly Leung), Light acquires a strange gift.
To give an idea of the production's holistic perfection, apples appear in the poster, in the interval drinks, on the fridge magnets and even in the 'crisps' on sale at the merch shop.
The gift is a notebook in which any name written will almost instantly die. Light is delighted and has soon killed off most of Tokyo's most violent criminals, becoming a hero to the masses called Kira in the process. His father, however, isn't happy with this turn of events and happens to be Tokyo's police chief (another great performance, full of the local tradition of formality and deference to authority, by Paolo Montalban).
Enter eccentric but brilliant detective L, a scene-stealing turn by Colin Ryan, gifted some of the best songs, and the love interest Misa, a pop star portrayed with great nuance by Stephanie Zaharis, and the scene is set for a suspenseful, gripping showdown of volcanic emotional power and philosophical clout. Imagine the TV series Dexter, but written for people who might have left school with some kind of qualification, and you will begin to have a sense of what follows. It doesn't end well.
I was moved, shocked and utterly absorbed. This diamond of a show, performed by a south east Asian cast but with the songs and dialogue in English here, only has a short - but brilliant - run. Catch it if you can!