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Death Note Stage Musical Will Come To London's Barbican Centre This Summer

Death Note the Musical, a stage version of the supernatural manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, will come to London's Barbican Centre in Summer 2026. It will run for six weeks from July 30 to September 12.

The musical has a website at https://deathnotethemusical.com/, where customers can sign up for pre-sale access. Priority tickets will go on sale on Tuesday March 3 at 5 p.m. Tickets will go on general sale on Wednesday March 4 at 10 a.m.

According to the West End Best Friend website, this London version of the musical 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. The cast is TBC.

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.

West End Best Friend quotes Wildhorn as saying, “I am humbled, honoured and beyond excited to bring Death Note to the Barbican this summer. I hope it's a step in a beautiful long life for our manga musical in the West and beyond. ”