Ghibli in London Part 2: Spirited Away

My summer in the bathhouse

Last week I talked about the joys of seeing My Neighbour Totoro on-stage and the joy, wonder, and nostalgia it brought me. Totoro left the Barbican at the end of March 2024, and just over five weeks later another large scale Studio Ghibli adaptation landed in London. This time it was coming not from Stratford-upon-Avon, but from Tokyo, Japan.

I had maybe seen the film of Spirited Away once during my Ghibli binge but couldn't resist the draw of more puppetry and magic. I arranged for a group visit the day after press night (coincidentally my birthday) and we dutifully rewatched the film in preparation. A decade older than when I first watched, and with The Boy and the Heron fresh in my mind, I found a lot more depth in Spirited Away than I first thought.

As our visit to the London Coliseum got closer I knew I was in trouble. Spirited Away was using a system of theatre casting - used in at least Japan and South Korea - that involves hiring up to four actors in any given role. Throw in understudies and that makes up 42 unique cast combinations (I did the maths) across the 16 week run. I knew that if I enjoyed the show enough I was going to try to see every cast member in every role. Keep your diagnosis to yourself but given a situation like this - I can’t help but try to complete it.

And so a spreadsheet was born.

Having never been to the London Coliseum, the impact on walking in was breathtaking. The immense ornate auditorium was filled with seats facing a stage surrounded with leaves and moss. Animated clouds filled the safety curtain and discrete subtitle screens were hidden amongst the foliage. It felt like a portal had opened up in London's Theatreland with an Edwardian theatre on one side, and the Japanese countryside on the other.

Keen to get the most from the visit we were sat slightly too close to see the subtitles properly but it didn't matter - we were swept up in the story of a young girl lost in a spirit world, trying to stop being a brat, and get back to her parents.

For that first performance we had Mone Kamishiraishi (from the iconic anime Your Name) in the lead role of Chihiro. Chihiro finds herself lost with her parents in an abandoned theme park and before too long her parents have been transformed into pigs and she is working in a bathhouse for gods and spirits. It’s the kind of plot that makes total sense as you watch it but is very hard to describe to someone else. As the lead Kamishiraishi portrayed a young girl forced through maturity by circumstance - at first a stroppy child but by the end a forthright young woman in love with a dragon / river spirit. As I said, it has to be seen to be believed.

While Totoro succeeded in the restraint it showed by saving the moments of fantasy as rare treats, Spirited Away leaned in and had a near continuous visual feast as creatures of all shapes and sizes were puppeteered into life. What both productions shared was a desire to celebrate, and not hide, their puppeteers. The character of Kamaji was supported by four other artists articulating his four additional limbs. While they were always clearly visible you could happily allow your brain to erase them and collapse into the illusion if you wanted. On the one hand you could focus on the fantasy of a six-armed man, on the other you could appreciate the craftsmanship of five performers acting as one.

All that pageantry aside, what I loved about Spirited Away was its willingness to embrace the smaller, quieter moments alongside the showstopping set pieces. In the first half of the play Chihiro cleans and releases a river spirit - a spectacle that ends with the entire company dancing in synchronised celebration. This moment received spontaneous applause from the audience and would normally have been the perfect time to lower the curtain for the interval.

Instead director John Caird, and co-adaptor Imai Maoko, chose to continue the story and end that first half on a quiter moment of reflection in the dormitory with Chihiro alone. When asked about this Caird said that he wanted to make it clear that this was a play, and not a musical. Similarly the play's second half features a climactic showdown between Chihiro and the monsterous No-Face. This does not end the play and instead is followed by a melancholy and wordless train journey. Like the film it is based on the stage version of Spirited Away was not afraid to slow down and embrace the silence.

As you no doubt guessed by now, I loved Spirited Away and found myself returning again and again throughout the summer. I got to see a total of five different Chihiros (including one understudy), four Hakus, three Lins, four Kamajis, and three Yubabas (including Mari Natsuki who originated the role on film). I became deeply familiar with the cast members who did not rotate including Hikaru Yamano as a deeply creepy No-Face, Kenya Osumi as the surprisingly graceful Aniyaku, Yuyu Igarashi as three green heads, and Mayu Musha as giant baby Bo.

The only other time I have seen a single play multiple times was in 2021 when the Royal Court's Constellations ran in the West End with four rotating casts. Something special happens when you see a show repeatedly - you stop experiencing it on the surface level and start to know it in your bones. There are moments you start to look forward to, and moments that start to annoy you. Most of all though, you get to focus on the details of a production and watching it becomes like rewatching a favourite film on a well worn VHS.

In total - I saw Spirited Away seven times last summer. I never sat in the same place twice and saw the play from right at the front, from the back of the stalls, and from the royal circle. Sitting one night at the far left, and another at the far right - I got to see into the wings on either side and build a fuller picture in my head about how the magic trick was done. I felt like I had seen the play in three dimensions - I spotted each time a body double was used and watched from the side as sets were discretely changed.

Considering that Spirited Away was in Japanese with subtitles, I stopped needing to read the text to understand what was happening. By the end of the summer I was at one with the play and could play it beat for beat in my head. Barring the language barrier I probably could have filled in for a minor character at short notice if the needed arised. My summer of Spirited Away ended on August 24th when on a Saturday evening the show finally closed. That final show was live-streamed on Hulu Japan but for the life of me I cannot track down a copy of that footage.

With a final thank you from Mone Kamishiraishi - ultimately my favourite of the many Chihiros - my months of escapism were over.

Did I go slightly overboard in my completist approach to theatre last year? Perhaps. Do I regret making the most of having a rare opportunity to see Japanese theatre in London? Absolutely not.

While Totoro felt like a uniquely British adaptation of a Japanese film. Spirited Away was a distinctly Japanese production with a beautiful blend of British support. The director and co-adaptor John Caird is an Olivier Award-winning director, and the puppets were all made in the UK. That aside the final show felt like a Japanese production without compromise and took real bravery to present in London at such scale without feeling the need to translate it to English. I wish we got more international productions in London.

While My Neighbour Totoro has returned to London, Spirited Away is headed to Shanghai. Rest assured that I am not looking up plane tickets and am reluctantly ending my theatre binge at a mere seven viewings.

What's the moral of this story? That subtitles can open up theatre to more stories in the same way they can to cinema. And that for the right show multiple viewings can only enhance you appreciation for the production.

To finish I leave you with my final reveal - the Spirited Away cast bingo card I made myself.

FULL HOUSE!