TOTORO IS AN icon. Studio Ghibli’s 1988 seminal animated masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro told the story of two young girls who, while worrying about their ill mother, wander into a forest and encounter a cuddly woodland spirit they christen Totoro — plus a magical bus shaped like a cat. Totoro has since become the unofficial mascot of Studio Ghibli, beloved by several generations of children and adults alike. He’s also bloody massive. How on Earth do you translate all that into a live-action puppet stage production?
“It’s still in process,” says Phelim McDermott, the veteran theatre director tasked with adapting the classic film into an ambitious stage show that plays at London’s Barbican Theatre from October. It’s a process that has been in the works for over four years, with the puppets, excitingly, currently being built by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in Los Angeles.