Harry Potter, the books and the movies, are a global
phenomenon and Sonia Freidman has already converted the franchise into a worldwide
theatrical hit as well with productions in London, Broadway, Melbourne, San
Francisco, and Hamburg already launched and more to follow. There is a
well-oiled production machine that now turns out these shows, keeps them fresh
and deals with the annual cast changes. In the West End at the Palace Theatre
the fourth cast of 43 performers opened for the first two show day on Saturday
May 24th with just two left from the original cast and I can report
that they are every bit as good as the earlier casts!
They have created a theatrical style that feels fresh and
new, a two-part play (that must be seen together in sequence). It is a
combination of spectacular magical illusion show, choreographed dance sequences
and narrative description between characters, often in quiet long wordy
speeches. It depends heavily on knowing
the back stories and having seen the films or read the books, but Potter super
fans will not be disappointed seeing familiar scenes and characters live. The
familiarity with stories means scenes can be created with a minimum of setting
allowing the audience to fill in the missing details from their own
memories. The Dursley’s cupboard under
the stairs, the hut where Hagrid finds Potter, the girls toilet washing
fountain, the Hogwarts headmasters’ study, the forbidden forest, the Triwizard
tournament and Godric’s Hollow are all created with a minimum of props.
What makes the show special is the extraordinary number of
special effects which recreate the magical world in front of our eyes without
the aid of cameras and CGI! The Polyjuice transformation, transfiguration, the
Floo Network, flying broomsticks, magic wands that fire plumes of flames, the
Ministry of Magic phone box, flying dementias and a patronus are all created to
brilliant effect. They live long in the memory and set new standards for cast
and crew in theatrical staging helped by an extraordinary Lighting Design by
Neil Austin who creates the different environments through his lights and hides
the magic trickery. There are tweaks to this latest production including a new
Oswald’s old people home scene packed with silly magical tricks in a chaotic
few minutes of collapsing props.
Writer Jack Thorne and Director John Tiffany weave all this
together, takings JK Rowling’s original stories as a springboard background to
tell a story about Father Son relationships. The story picks up twenty-two
years after the final battle and defeat of Voldemort with the characters grown
up with their own families. We see the strained relationship between Harry
Potter (a deeply troubled Jamie Ballard) and his son Albus (a nervous withdrawn
Dominic Short) and between Draco Malfoy (a very serious James Howard) and his
son Scorpius (a wonderfully funny Jonathan Case in his second year). Indeed, it
is Scorpius who often dominates the scenes with the best written
characterisation of the show obviously not relying on or fitting in with our
prior knowledge of the characters. All are sharply contrasted with Thomas
Aldridge’s Ron, more a buffoon than ever as he is always desperate to get in on
the action that has left him behind.
There are strong performances from some of the female
characters too. Michaele Gayle is new to the cast as Hermione (in quite a
departure from her previous roles as a pop singer and in Musical theatre and
pantomime) and acquits herself well showing she is an accomplished actress. Lucy Mangan as Moaning
Myrtle has a fun cameo role and Kathryn
Meisle at Professor Umbridge is also excellent. Another character
created for the Stage show is Delphi, Amos Diggory’s niece, played by Madeleine Walker.
This is five hours of theatre that deserves the multitude of
awards it has collected although it feels like an hour of it has been included
just to make it into 2 parts as there was too much for just one play. The time
taken in part 1 to establish the next generation of wizards and then set up the
main storyline means that the action at the heart of the story and the
resolution gets delayed into Part 2. Nevertheless, it is a wonderful unique
piece of Theatre, at times more like a Theme park stunt show, and is set to run
and run here in London and all round the world.
Nick Wayne
Four stars