Singaporean actor Xander Pang stars as Light Yagami in London production of Death Note musical

In the musical, the eccentric detective will be played by British actor Colin Ryan. Its score is by Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn, with lyrics by Jack Murphy and a book by Ivan Menchell.

Pang, 25, joins a list of actors who have portrayed Light Yagami across different adaptations of Death Note. 

These include Mamoru Miyano, who voiced the character in the iconic anime series; Tatsuya Fujiwara, who played Light in the 2006 live-action films; Masataka Kubota, who starred as the character in the 2015 Japanese television drama; and Nat Wolff, who portrayed the Americanised version of the character, Light Turner, in Netflix’s 2017 adaptation.

Originally premiering in Tokyo in 2015, Death Note: The Musical was first staged in Japanese despite having been written in English. A Korean-language production followed later that year, while the show’s English-language premiere took place in London in 2023.