Getting hold of tickets for the new Harry Potter play isn’t easy and that’s well documented. My friend and neighbor Gavin, 
who is a theatre producer himself, ranks it currently as the hottest plays in town alongside ‘This house’ and ‘Hedda Gabler’. I’d have to add ‘An inspector calls’ to his list having seen it recently and finding me as part of the standing ovation crowd at the end of the show.
Against this backdrop, it was a bit funny to suddenly end up with 6 tickets for part one & two of the production about two weeks ago, as Gavin had sorted a pair for me while I simultaneusly succeded in the auction for the spring 2018 run.
The Palace theatre is one of the largest theatre venues in London and has for many a year hosted ‘les miserables’ –
my first London musical in summer 2002 where I fell in love with the voice of one of the singers and purchased the CD right after the show (it remains my all time favorite to this day). The installation on stage was extremely powerful and made use of the whole room beyond the stage itself be it dementors flying over your head, new prophecies projected on the ceiling or Lord Voldemort marching off through the stalls. Most powerful were the magic effects around time travel when the whole stage appeared to whobble or morph or so.
The show itself ticked all the boxes be it that it leaned on many old potter tales and kind of remixed them. A new child generation (albus severus potter and scorpius malfoy) as the main actors – now best friends and both sorted into Slytherin house, with some sup
port from the parent generation harry and draco et al, Voldomort back in action (now even with a daughter) and even Dumbledor adds his wisdom as a painting from time to time. More familiar faces are made possible by the time travelling device that albus and scorpius try to use to prevent the death of cedric digery in the tri wizard tournament. Don’t want to say too much though at this stage. See it for yourself!
Alex enjoyed his time and stayed awake even for the entire evening session. The only time he got really scared was between part one and two … when he stumbled into a dead pigeon. The one time I got scared is when he asked me to visit a seemingly very gay shop soon after the incident above. A bit early I guess ;o)
