In early 2026, it was announced that Death Note: The Musical would be coming to London. I was pretty excited about this! (And I was right to be; it was a great show! I've talked about it over on my Death Note website.)
My housemates Tem and Rei, knowing of my deep fondness for both Light Yagami and Robert Grove, decided to bully me a little when the show was first announced.
Tem: Are you looking forward to seeing your boy Light Yagami?
Rei: Played by Robert Grove.
Riona: That would be a bold casting decision, but I'd watch it.
Tem: Death Note Goes Wrong. Their 'prop Death Note' is an actual Death Note. They need to write in it during the show, so they just use the names of the people who bought tickets. At the end, they're going 'wow, this was our most successful performance ever, can't wait for the applause,' and the lights go up to reveal the entire audience dead, with Ryuk sitting in the front row and applauding.
Rei: They consider writing Jonathan's name in the Death Note, because it's the only way he'll be included in the play, but they decide against it because he's not part of the audience. That's the only reason he survives.
Riona: Or they write his name in the Death Note, but he survives because they misspell it.
Robert Grove cannot be trusted with a Death Note if he doesn't know it's real, but he also cannot be entrusted with a Death Note if he does know it's real, of course. If Robert sees an opportunity to secure the role he desires, he will take that opportunity immediately and think about it later, if at all.
Basically, Robert has no particular desire for anyone's death, but he will one hundred percent kill people if it's a straightforward way to get what he wants. I give it a week before he kills Chris in order to get the lead role and then goes '...hmm, I might regret that later.'
Dennis might actually be the safest member of the Cornley Drama Society to entrust with a Death Note. He wouldn't use it with the intention of killing anyone. He would almost certainly forget it kills people and start using it like a normal notebook, which is risky, but if he writes anyone's name he's probably going to misspell it.
Aaaaand then Robert would wrestle the notebook off him and use it to kill Chris so he can have the lead. Let's just not give the Cornley Drama Society a Death Note at all.
Of course, Robert won't actually get to play Light if Chris is in charge of casting. Chris likes playing protagonists and villains; he's not going to be able to resist giving himself the villain protagonist! Therefore, Chris would give himself the role of Light. I’m going to say that Max would play Ryuk - he’s got the grin for it - and Annie would be Misa; I think she'd have a lot of fun in that role. I can see Sandra as Rem.
Robert demands to be L. Chris refuses to cast him as L; he instead casts Robert as Light’s father and gives the role of L to Jonathan. Inevitably, though, Jonathan is unable to get onto the stage during the performance, and Robert gleefully steps in. Chris and Robert definitely capture the intense, hostile homoeroticism of Light and L’s duets, although some parts of the audience are confused by L apparently being Light’s father.