The cast of Dear England (2025) at the National Theatre.Marc Brenner/Supplied
If you’re hitting pause on future travel to the United States, you’re not alone. In March, 32 per cent fewer Canadians drove across the American border compared with the same period last year, and the tourism industry shows no signs of recovery as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to wage his unpredictable trade war.
It’s too soon to tell if many of the approximately 3.8 per cent of Broadway tickets sales attributed to Canadians will go unsold this year. Ordinarily, I’d be heading to New York myself right around now, to catch up on recent Broadway hits as well as the rash of Canadian work geared to play the Big Apple this summer.
But like many Canadians, I’m sitting out this year’s southern travel plans.
This April, however, I had the chance to catch a few shows on London’s West End, and I hardly missed my usual springtime jaunt to the Great White Way. If you’re planning a trip to England – and maybe missing out on a planned excursion to the Great White Way – here’s what to see (and skip) in three of the country’s most storied theatres.
What to see: My Neighbour Totoro and Dear England (or anything at the National Theatre, really)
Whether you’re an established Studio Ghibli fan or don’t know anime from Adam, don’t miss director Phelim McDermott’s inspired take on My Neighbour Totoro, adapted from Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 film of the same name. The show, playing at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, uses intricate, gargantuan puppets to conjure Totoro – an imaginary creature sometimes described as a cross between a bear, a badger and an owl – and his fellow fantastical friends, as well as environmental details like soot sprites and rolling country roads. McDermott preserves Miyazaki’s legendary whimsy and cheek, resulting in a theatrical experience that hardly feels its two-and-a-half-hour runtime.
When we meet sisters Mei (Victoria Chen) and Satsuki (Ami Okumara Jones), the girls have just moved to the countryside from Tokyo, along with their doting father (Dai Tabuchi). The children’s mother (Phyllis Ho), meanwhile, is in hospital with an unspecified sickness – dad and the doctors hope the fresh air will help her recover.
Soon enough, four-year-old Mei meets Totoro, suggested onstage by a massive, inflatable puppet covered with fur. Over the course of the play, Totoro appears when the girls most need him – when they’re caught in a storm and need shelter from the rain, for instance, and when Mei goes missing in the show’s surprisingly harrowing second act.
McDermott’s Totoro pays homage to the film without directly copying it – key plot details occur during the curtain call, a lovely response to Miyazaki’s habit of concluding storylines during end credit sequences. Truly, if you find yourself in London, you must make time to pay Totoro a visit – though you may struggle to avoid purchasing a plush pal of your own to take home.
Meanwhile, playing until May 24 at the National Theatre, is Dear England, James Graham’s ode to England football manager Gareth Southgate. No need to know anything about the sport if you don’t already – Graham’s script, which feels like a cross between The Master Plan and Ted Lasso, brings you up to speed on penalty kicks and statistics without beating you over the head with them.
Rupert Goold’s production uses an ingenious blend of projections, sparse set pieces and a rotating stage to get to the root of Team England’s problems: Why can’t the team win? And how might Southgate overcome decades of lost confidence to change that? It’s a top-notch production of an impressively didactic script – let’s hope it gets added to the National Theatre’s digital streaming service before the World Cup heads to North America next year.
And even if you miss Dear England, be sure to save room in your next London itinerary for the National Theatre, which is surrounded by trendy bars and restaurants, generally features excellent programming and houses a terrific bookstore for plays and hard-to-find books about drama.
What to skip: The Devil Wears Prada
You’d think The Devil Wears Prada, now playing at the ion Theatre, would result in a fairly bulletproof musical adaptation. If such screen-to-stage hits as Legally Blonde, Heathers and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are to be taken as evidence, movies often make great inspiration for theatre.
The Devil Wears Prada has all the ingredients for excellence: It’s based on a beloved film with a massive cult following, features tunes by none other than Elton John, and stars Vanessa Williams in the role of Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep in the film).
But the musical struggles to take off, with a book by actor Kate Wetherhead that neither updates Prada’s story to 2025 nor registers as a period piece of the early 2000s. (The costumes don’t help that problem – most of them look like they’ve been pulled off the rack from the Primark across the street from the theatre, yet the haircuts and clunky cellphones in the show remain staunchly situated in 2006.)
John’s songs, too, are instantly forgettable, save for Seen, an anthem for queer youth sung by Runway exec Nigel (Matt Henry) late in the second act.
Williams is fine as Priestly – reprising a Streep role is a tough ask, but Williams mostly makes Miranda her own – and Georgie Buckland shows off serious pipes as Andy (played by Anne Hathaway in the film).
But alas, those performances aren’t enough to make The Devil Wears Prada sing. The show needs serious work if it’s eyeing a transfer to New York or Toronto. And if it does? Gird your loins.
