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Message From Lead Actors of Death Note the Musical in London

Death Note the Musical, a stage version of the supernatural manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, is coming to London's Barbican Centre in Summer 2026, running from July 30 to September 12. The two lead actors are now confirmed as Xander Pang as Light and Colin Ryan as L, who have recorded a video message on the musical's Facebook page.

Pang comments, "How iconic Death Note is makes this all the more special, and to see East Asian representation on such a large scale means a lot to me and I think will mean a lot to a lot of people. The Barbican, I think, is a beautiful space... To be able to work here over the summer is like a dream come true."

According to a report in London Theatre Direct, Xander Pang appeared as Luke in The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical at The Other Palace and has performed in Macbeth and Beyond Paradise.

Colin Ryan has appeared in Hamlet, My Brilliant Friend and The Lightning Child at Shakespeare's Globe, as well as Wendy and Peter Pan with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His voice credits include Alphinaud Leveilleur in Final Fantasy XIV and Apollo in Hades II.

The musical has a website at https://deathnotethemusical.com/ and a page at the Barbican website. According to the West End Best Friend website, the London version will feature a revised script and newly written songs. There are also plans to transfer the production to Broadway.

West End Best Friend also specifies this is a full production. The musical previously had concert performances in London in 2023 at the London Palladium and Lyric Theatre. The event is described on the musical's website:

"If you had the power over life and death, what would you do? This summer, the hotly anticipated world premiere of Death Note: The Musical, arrives at the Barbican for 50 performances only from 30 July to 12 September.

"With over 30 million copies sold worldwide, the legendary manga phenomenon by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata is a global sensation that has captivated audiences for almost twenty years, including multiple sell-out seasons of the musical in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

"Now, boldly reimagined for the London stage in close collaboration with the original Japanese producers, HoriPro, this new musical features an electrifying score by Tony, Grammy and Emmy nominee Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Jack Murphy and a book by Ivan Menchell. Death Note: The Musical is set to be the theatrical event of the summer."

The musical will be performed in English. It will run for two and a half hours, including a 20-minute interval, and has an age guidance rating of 12+. The director of the London performance will be Stephen Whitson. Other credits announced for this production include designer Jon Bausor, choreographer Fabian Aloise, orchestrator and arranger Jason Howland, and additional lyrics by Morgan Reilly.

Frank Wildhorn has also written stage musical versions of Your Lie in April and Fist of the North Star. His Your Lie in April musical ran in The Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End from July to September 2024. Wildhorn is an American composer, who also wrote songs sung by Whitney Houston ("Where Do Broken Hearts Go?") and Natalie Cole, and many other stage musicals.

In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's original 2003-2006 supernatural suspense manga, teenager Light Yagami finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.