A Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Theatre Review

I’m going to talk some more about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. To be more specific I’m going to talk about spoiler elements. If you haven’t seen the play I highly recommend you go see it before reading this post. If you still haven’t made up your mind about seeing the play you should read my spoiler free review instead.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD AT THE PALACE THEATRE

I think my favourite thing about seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was how they used the theatre. From the tiny details like the gryffin lanterns outside to the little cherubs inside holding lights (fun fact: while Priscilla Queen of the Desert was at the Palace each cherub held a tiny glitter ball). Even the wallpaper was specially designed for it. You wouldn’t notice unless you were specifically looking at it but it was covered in fancy ‘H’s.

Unless you were sitting in the balcony you probably also wouldn’t have noticed that the wallpaper on the ceiling was being projected on. I’m assuming this was for the reveal where the prophecy appears. Also can we just talk about the dementors flying around the theatre before part 1 finished. I think that may have been the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.

THE SPECIAL EFFECTS

Even though I wasn’t totally in love with the Cursed Child story. I think the play is worth seeing just for the special effects. The theatre has always been good at creating a sense of magic just using lights and mirrors but you could almost believe the actors were really doing magic on stage. Even the tiniest things like the set dressing and sleight of hand to make it look like parts of the set disappeared. I love how they used trap doors for the polyjuice change. And the moment they went back in time and the stage actually rippled. It was all so well done.

I have to talk about my favourite moment in the play. Which was when Scorpius comes out of the lake into the evil timeline and Umbridge appears. That moment when the audience realises it’s Umbridge and the gasp that went around from literally everyone is the most glorious thing I have ever heard. Voldemort may be evil but you can still feel sorry for him in a weird way. But literally every single Harry Potter fan is in agreement that Dolores Umbridge is the most evil character in the whole series.

This is the only time I have ever gone to a show and the audience has boooed an actor during the bows. I mean okay the people playing Voldemort and Umbridge bowed together and you can understand why the audience would boo (even though it does feel a bit mean to the actors) but I’ve still never seen that before and I seriously doubt I will ever see it again.

KEEP THE SECRET

Can we also just talk about how amazing it is that people kept the story a secret. I mean they have Snape and Voldemort in the show. You would have expected someone to give that spoiler away. But they kept it a secret. This is the sort of thing you would expect to see in the papers and yet nothing. It’s not even mentioned in the program.

The creators have done everything they can to make sure no one finds out the secrets till the right moment.  And it has paid off so well. They even waited till after the show to sell souvenir brochures so you don’t find out anything. The whole thing was so well done. This would normally be the moment where I say something like ‘go see Cursed Child’ but you’ve already seen the play. You had better have seen the play. Don’t come crying to me about spoilers I warned you.