Spirited Away, London Coliseum review ★★★★★

With its giant puppets, soaring spirits and bursts of lavish spectacle, John Caird’s stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s Oscar-winning film Spirited Away is a visual feast. The show makes its UK premiere at the London Coliseum following an initial run in Japan. Arriving only a year after the RSC’s take on another Ghibli masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro delighted audiences at the Barbican, naturally comparisons have been drawn. And? Caird’s co-adaption with Maoko Imai is distinctly more Japanese. It’s delivered in its native tongue, with English surtitles, and while it’s harder work, it feels pleasingly closer to its source material too.

As fans of the 2001 film will know, it’s a marvellously trippy story with tones of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. It follows a young girl, Chihiro (played when Culture Whisper saw it by a heart-meltingly mournful Rina Kawaei), who wanders into a strange world where amoral figures send her round in circles, adults are not instinctive protectors, and a bullying dictator imposes twisted laws. Chihiro is forced into manual labour at a vast bathhouse after her parents have been turned into pigs by the witchy Yabuko. With the help of a young boy, Haku, and the silent, ominous-looking No Face (Hikaru Yamano, a nimble mover), she looks for ways to reverse the spell.


Kanna Hashimoto (Chihiro) in Spirited Away. Photo: Johan Persson

Jon Bausor’s enchanting set, boxed in by greenery, captures the vast realms of the wooden bathhouse. Its various chambers swing in and out of focus, and sometimes contain pockets of action even when they’re not the focus, like when silhouetted puppets dance in an illuminated window, or miniature soot sprites fondle lumps of coal. Puppet maestro Toby Olié saves his best work for the big guns though: monstrous heads, flying spirits and massive, gleaming mouths that gobble up characters whole are among the most arresting. All characters appear exactly like their on-screen counterparts, save for Mayu Musha’s baby Bo – a dwarfing, bulbous tyrant in the movie – who is less imposing here.

In spite of its naturalistic set, there are some gloriously Brechtian moments, with performers mobilising doors, wall panels and a train carriage – suiting the story’s surrealness. There are great chorus sequences too, where clusters of identically-dressed performers appear as flowers, dancers or nymphs and collectively ogle the frightened Chihiro, heightening the sense she’s alone in a world where she doesn’t belong. Joe Hisaishi’s score, sometimes twinkling and whimsical, other times tense and stirring, underpins the whole production.

At three hours, it is too long for a family show – expanding unnecessarily on the film's 125-minute runtime. But this adaptation pulls out all the stops to faithfully replicate the magic of one of the Ghibli cannon’s greatest titles, and followers of director Hayao Miyazaki’s works will not be disappointed.