Anime Cracker
My Neighbour Totoro (Gillian Lynne Theatre, formerly the New London) Guest Review by Dr Terror
I stared and stared at the pink frontage, clashing wildly with the lush green colouring. What on earth was a nineties video shop doing here? A nineties video shop with all its prices in dollars?
I was used, by now, to the modern trend among the more lavish West End productions of 'theming' the entire theatre: the streets of Hawkins, Indiana (Stranger Things); The Kit Kat Club (Cabaret); the Moulin Rouge (Paddington. I'm kidding - it's Moulin Rouge). However, I had seen the feature length cartoon (or anime, if you will) My Neighbour Totoro and there was no American video shop in it. If anything, it came nearer Ghostbusters than Blockbusters. So what gave? Well, it turns out that the video shop was a mere disguise for a bleeding-edge cool speakeasy which had nothing to do with the show at all, despite being integrated into the theatre. This tickled me: just as a 60s police box is an utterly crap disguise for the TARDIS - but so wonderful - so a 90s video shop, in an era where VHS is but a fever dream of a dim and distant past, disguising your speakeasy as a be-kind-and-rewind emporium of cheesy action films and softcore porn is definitely barking up the wrong tree.
And talk of trees brings me right back to My Neighbour Totoro: there is one apparently growing in the auditorium. Those who know the Studio Ghibli masterpiece will know the importance of the forest setting, in which two little girls and their loving, if chaotic, father move to a village outside Tokyo in 1955 and find magically growing crops, the cutest monsters this side of Sesame Street (or perhaps Avenue Q, a five minute walk away) and a cat that is also a bus.
I have almost grown tired of saying this (though not quite) but, much as I loved the film, this show is even better. How it deals with Totoro (the cute monster) picking up the children and flying with them drew audible gasps of joy from the audience. Al Ninomiya's songs enhance what is already perfect. The cast and puppeteers (mostly overlapping categories) are superlative.
If you want a couple of hours of sheer joy, you know where to go.