'Anjin the Shogun and the English Samurai' opened on 31 January; this run finishes on Saturday 9 February

Anjin The Shogun and the English Samurai premiered in Japan in 2009. Following two successful seasons there, its finale is now being held at Sadler’s Wells. This special production in London is part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Season, A World Elsewhere and is a launch event for Japan400, which is celebrating the 400th anniversary of Japan-British relations that began with the arrival of the English ship the Clove in 1613.

Various events are being held throughout the UK in 2013 to celebrate this landmark.

Anjin covers a remarkable period of Japanese history, set at a time of an emerging new world witnessing the establishment of new networks of trade and plunder and a new understanding of the universe which challenged the old certainty of the earth being at the centre.

Will Adams (1564-1620), the future ‘Anjin’ was a native of Gillingham, Kent and believed to be the first Englishman to reach Japan on the Liefde in 1600. He was also one of Britain’s most picturesque and daring maritime traders and this is an epic tale of rare adventures and his rise to become confidant and advisor to the Shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa .

This sumptuous London production opened, rather aptly, on 31 January, the date of Ieyasu Tokugawa’s birthday, marking 420 years since his birth. It is a completely bilingual production combining the talent of Japanese and British actors and relying, for the translation, on surtitles. The play was written by a British and Japanese author, Mike Poulton and Shoichiro Kawai.

Gregory Doran, the director of Anjin, is Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In a brief conversation before the start of the play, he told me had approached the play as one would a Shakespeare History. The themes in Shakespeare’s Histories tend to focus on kingship, love, good and evil, destiny and fate and all these are certainly explored in Anjin.

If you would like to find out  more about the production and Sadler’s Wells, details can be found here.