The stage adaptation of Dav Pilkey's wildly popular Dog Man graphic novels is set to make its London debut at the Southbank Centre in the summer of 2025. This news adds another major children's classic to a thriving West End scene already populated by hits like Paddington: The Musical, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and the multi-Olivier Award-winning My Neighbour Totoro.
The Art of Capturing the Book's Spirit
For adaptors, the key challenge is not merely replicating a story but capturing its essence. Kevin Del Aguila, the Emmy-winning writer behind the sell-out off-Broadway production of Dog Man: The Musical, says tone is everything. "If the show doesn't feel like the books, the audience will revolt," he explained. His secret weapon? His then fourth-grade son, a devoted expert on the series.
Del Aguila noted that Pilkey was remarkably hands-off, with one crucial stipulation: Dog Man himself cannot speak, only bark. Embracing this creative constraint forced the team to be inventive. The goal was to capture the books' sense of "fun anarchy," a quality that makes young readers feel a unique ownership of the chaotic, gleeful world.
From Page to Stage: A Delicate Translation
Tom Morton-Smith, who adapted Studio Ghibli's My Neighbour Totoro for the Royal Shakespeare Company, took a different approach. His process involved deep immersion, watching Hayao Miyazaki's film repeatedly. Working from an animated source, he found freedom in translation, focusing on conjuring the same atmospheres and feelings rather than creating a slavish copy.
"It's not about putting the film on stage," Morton-Smith said. "It's about finding the essence... and crafting something new with the same rigour." He emphasised the importance of the human characters; if they felt cartoonish, the magical forest spirits would lose their power. For him, the ultimate success is if the audience isn't consciously aware of the adaptation work at all.
The Business of Beloved Stories
Behind the creative process lie significant practical hurdles, especially for smaller companies. Siblings Jonathan and Lucy Kaufman, adaptors of Beatrix Potter tales, highlight issues like navigating copyright and rights, which often restrict them to works in the public domain. They also face logistical puzzles, like staging an eleven-character chase scene with only five actors.
Their efforts feed a booming market. A recent British Theatre Consortium report found that adaptations made up 40.8% of all UK theatre performances in 2023, up from 35.6% in 2019. Venues are increasingly relying on familiar titles to rebuild post-pandemic audiences. While writer Jonathan Kaufman admits a preference for original plays, he sees the modern challenge as transforming well-known material into something fresh and relevant for today's theatregoers.
As Dog Man prepares to bark his way onto the Southbank stage, he joins a proven and popular tradition of bringing cherished pages to thrilling theatrical life.
