Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: a show with ‘genuine wow-factor’

When “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” opened at London’s Palace Theatre in 2016, it won rave reviews and nine Olivier Awards. Presented in two parts, running at just over five hours in total, the drama, scripted by Jack Thorne, revisits J.K. Rowling’s characters a generation on – and proved so effective, it “quickly became canon” among “Potter” fans, said Emma John in The Guardian.

Now, just a few weeks after that show closed in London, a condensed version of the play, presented in a single instalment, has opened.

This adaptation – originally devised for audiences on Broadway, and since staged in Australia and elsewhere – was designed to make the play cheaper and more accessible for family audiences but even Thorne and director John Tiffany were anxious about reworking the original.

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And yet their downsized show works magnificently, said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph. It is “a different beast to the one I raved about ten years ago – less palatial, more propulsive” – but it is still fantastic, and now surely “good for another 10 years” or more. I’d forgotten how “head-spinning” the stage illusions are: there’s a “genuine wow factor” to the levitating broomsticks, and to the sight of chairs and bodies suspended in mid-air as Harry and Draco Malfoy settle old scores. Admittedly, some of the “extravagant strangeness” has been lost, but it remains a “spellbinding” spectacle.

Even more so than before, however, it does help to “know your Potterverse (to muggle up, as it were)”, as the action “proceeds with the speed of the Hogwarts Express, often shifting location in the time it takes to flap a cape”.

As a “‘Potter’ agnostic”, said Clive Davis in The Times, I found some of the plot hard to follow, but I still enjoyed the show and its thrilling illusions. David Ricardo-Pearce and Naana Agyei-Ampadu remain a “reassuring presence” as the adult Harry and Hermione. And there’s much to savour in the evolving relationship between the two next-generation leads: Harry’s son Albus and Draco’s son Scorpius. Slimmed-down “Potter” is “still magic”, which is “good news for parents who don’t want to re-mortgage their homes” for tickets.
Palace Theatre, London; until 27 June.