Photo by Manuel Harlan

My Neighbour Totoro adapted by Tom Morton-Smith – Barbican Theatre, London

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s collaboration with Studio Ghibli, and their composer Joe Hisaishi, is a big deal. It breaks new ground, looking unlike anything the company has staged before and entering risky territory. The much-loved 1988 film My Neighbour Totoro has a devoted fanbase who would never forgive a stage show that messed it up. Fortunately the production team is perfect. Writer Tom Morton-Smith delivers a subtle adaptation that respects the film’s character. Phelim McDermott, of Improbable Theatre fame, directs with a very clear sense of why the film is special, while making it stage spectacle. Hisaishi provides a strong thread of authenticity. And designer Tom Pye, with puppet master Basil Twist, delivers a masterclass.

In short, My Neighbour Totoro is a delight. It is also an artistic triumph, a musical and a family show, but without any of the condescension that often implies. It is a beautiful and wistful show, where nothing is rushed and everything feels real, even when it’s a 20ft high furry puppet. The story follow a difficult time in the life of young Satsuki and her sister (“I am FOUR years old”) Mei, who move to the country with their father Tatsuo to be nearer their mother Yasuko, ill in hospital. The girls take consolation from the forest spirits they find in their new, rural home, first an infestation of soot sprites and then Totoro’s smaller sidekicks, and finally Totoro himself, a furry, benevolent owl/bear/cat combination with a huge grin and a giant roar, who helps them in need.

The main challenge of putting the film on theatre is staging Studio Ghibli’s fantastical beings, and this is where the production really shines. A team of puppeteers, dressed in black, manipulate everything from soot sprites to butterflies to a flock of very animated chickens on the end of stiff wires, entrancing the audience every time. They move characters to set, shuffling across the stage tending rows of rice plants, attached to their feet. In a memorable scene they drift around Mei as moving rows of maize as she becomes lost in a field. And then there are the creatures themselves, made by the Jim Henson Creature Shop. Heralded by two smaller friends who scuttle across the set, chased by Mei, Totoro himself is a triumph – first appearing as a vast sleeping yawning mound of fur, and then as a perfect representation of the film’s character, mesmerising the audience with his every grin. And then there’s the Cat Bus, a 12-legged flying cat and bus combination that provides a magical transport service. It glows brightly from within, and looks amazing.

It would be easy to imagine the cast struggling to compete with such wizardry, but their performances give the show its heart. As Satsuki and Mei, Ami Okumura Jones and Mei Mac draw us right in both with their energetic game-playing and their touching attempts to cope with the shadow of their mother’s illness. Mei Mac pulls off the very tough job of playing a young child in a way that does not seem forced. Michael Phong Le, as their father, is the perfect combination of together and lost. The show does not shy away from the story’s darker side, notably during a scene where Mei goes missing and a cast of farmers search a pond with long bamboo canes in a sort of dance, both beautiful and very sad. The upbeat moments are all the more significant for being hard-won, and although the evening does not do easy happy endings, it is filled with the positivity that comes from people looking after one another.

Totoro is already sold out at the Barbican, and must surely be in line for a West End transfer. It thoroughly deserves to run for a long time, providing both delight and essential income in equal measure. Although the RSC’s incoming artistic directors Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans have yet to take the reins, this inspired collaboration feels like the foundation for an exciting new era in Stratford and London.