Neighbours Across Borders

Mei Mac’s latest role is a dream come true: Mei Kusakabe, the lead role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage adaptation of one of her childhood favourites, Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 animation My Neighbour Totoro. The production, which features new orchestrations of Joe Hisaishi’s original score and has taken seven years to put together, will have its global premiere this month at the Barbican in London.

The British actress believes the production couldn’t have come at a better time: for more than two years, the pandemic has plagued the world with grief and loss—themes that are also prevalent in, which portrays post-Second World War rural Japan through the eyes of two children