Ah HARRY POTTER... Neil Simon once said of the tv series "Friends" 'It's like they made one episode and they keep showing it all the time" - that's how I felt about the Harry Potter films. When all the blind alleys and red herrings were stripped away, they all told a fairly basic story which never really seemed to reach a denouement (apart from the final one of course). It also suffered from the dedicated book-to-film franchise problem of having an ever-growing collection of characters who all had to appear for only minutes at a time sometimes - the last film was a veritable parade of actors all turning up to stare down the camera, contributing nothing to the actual story. The things Maggie Smith and Emma Thompson have made me do...
But here we are, in the Dress Circle of the Palace Theatre, as I said a veritable barn of a place that could have served as an inspiration for Hogwarts with it's dark gloomy spaces and Gothic pretensions, and the good news was that, despite my fears of having restricted view seats towards the end of the third row, they gave a very good view of the large open proscenium arch stage. Quite right too for the prices I paid.
Despite my anathema for the Harry Potter films, I must admit that I got quite excited waiting for the play to start: HARRY POTTER, along with HAMILTON, have made the mere attendance of the show an event, so sitting and waiting for the start could only be a combination of relief to finally be in the seats booked ages ago and to get the vibe from the audience that you are in the auditorium of a copper-bottomed hit.
I must also admit by the end of the first play I was fully on-board - John Tiffany's production moves along at quite a breathless pace and the sheer theatricality of the piece was what I enjoyed most: illusion, slight-of-hand, the simple Black Theatre of Prague techniques all contributed to a show - that like the best of all theatre - allows you to use your imagination while watching, the direct reverse of what the films did which allowed for no imagination as everything was CGI-d for you.
The production has the feel of a musical - the on-stage action is deftly choreographed by Steven Hoggett, which sweeps you along with the characters inter-actions with each other and the sets - I particularly liked how just some snap-to-black lighting and the ensemble's swirling capes transitioned one scene to another so effectively. Last year we saw John Tiffany and Steven Hoggett's PINOCCHIO at the National which, compared to POTTER, seems even more clunky than it did at the time.
The programme helpfully gives you a potted Potter synopsis of all the stories up until the start of the play: 19 years after Harry's defeat of his evil nemesis Voldemort, he is grown up and employed by the Ministry of Magic. He and his wife Ginny send Albus their youngest son off to be educated at Hogwarts and, while travelling, Albus makes friends with another new pupil, the shy yet gushing Scorpius. Much to Albus' surprise, he discovers Scorpius is the son of Potter's former bully Draco Malfoy. Albus and Scorpius find life at Hogwarts hard as they are forever compared to their more illustrious fathers which makes the friends bond all the more special.
Harry is approached by the father of a contemporary of his at Hogwarts who was killed by Voldemort; the old man has heard of the existence of a time-travelling device which could be used to save his son from an early death. Harry refuses but Albus is determined to help him and his anarchic niece Delphi. Harry is confused at the growing estrangement from Albus and is worried from auguries that something evil is approaching. The boys steal the time device from the office of Harry's school-friend Hermione, and twice attempt their mission; however both times end with them interfering with time altering the reality of their present day. On the second attempt, Scorpius finds himself trapped in a reality where Harry was killed by Voldemort who reigns supreme.
The first play ends on such an unexpected note of the evil world manifested to the terrified Scorpius that it really send you out desperate for Part 2 - the final coup de theatre is breath-taking, generally eerie and - as the free badge we received as we left the theatre asked us to #keepthesecrets, I will. The second play sadly runs out of steam and is not as dramatically involving as the first. The second play seems full of repetitions and the culprit who is allowing the coming evil to happen is very obvious. Indeed, even the final confrontation between Potter, his old friends and the spirit of Voldemort, doesn't quite work. Both fathers and sons - Harry & Albus, Draco & Scorpius - are finally reunited however but this also threw up a quandary for me.
For a hugely successful female writer JK Rowling is oddly resistant to showing any connection between her female characters: Ginny Potter is a standard worried mother, Hermione - while in a position of power - has hardly any connection with her daughter Rose who starts out with Harry and Scorpius but who soon vanishes for large sections of the story, while Delphi remains firmly obsessed with her father. So the only real female character who appears to have any tangible connection to Harry is his mother... who's dead. When the relationships in the play buzz around the subject of the burdens placed on fathers and son relationships, the women in essence are not allowed any such soul-searching. Strange.
As I said the second play cannot keep up the pace of the first and it left me with the feeling that writer Jack Thorne could have been more concise with his, Tiffany and Rowling's original story - but whoever heard of a production taking place over one full play and a second first act? There just seemed to be a lot of padding to get to the climax of the second play.
In juggernaut productions like HARRY POTTER there really is no need to cast star names but the performances were by-and-large good: Jamie Ballard was good as the troubled Harry while Joe Idris-Roberts was very good as his equally-troubled son Albus, oddly enough we last saw him as another growing boy with father issues for John Tiffany in PINOCCHIO.
Thomas Aldridge was fine as the plain-speaking Ron Weasley but Franc Ashman as Hermione frequently sounded clanging notes, however Helen Aluko showed spirit as their daughter Rose - so much so that I wished she had more to do. But by far the most eye-catching performance was Jonathan Case as Scorpius, in his first professional role. Although he pushed the gurgling, bashful, tongue-tied Scorpius to almost Boris Johnsonian levels, he connected to the role perfectly and made him more of a central character than either Potter, with a more interesting character arc.
The true stars are however the production team: Tiffany's direction allied to Steven Hoggett's movement, Christine Jones' sets, Katrina Lindsay's costumes, Imogen Heap's score, Neil Austin's lighting and the illusion effects of Jamie Harrison; all combine to give a unique theatrical event and a genuine celebration of what theatre - and only theatre - can do.
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