Harry Potter and The Cursed Child

Harry Potter may have reached the end of his childhood travels in both book and film but he’s not abandoned us completely.
Is that a sigh of relief I hear you breathe? Me too.
Harry and his friends are set to make an appearance on the stage in London’s West End in a two part play which is the result of a collaboration between writer Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and of course Harry’s creator J.K. Rowling and is due to hit the stage in the summer of 2016.
The poster art for the play was revealed yesterday and it definitely whets the appetite for more Harry adventures!

J.K. has been her usual enigmatic self in regards to the play’s subject matter. Who is this ‘Lost Child’? Is it Snape? Lupin perhaps? Or maybe a new character; one thing is for certain J.K. has stated this is not a prequel.

Amendment: – Today’s Guardian is suggesting this is going to be about Albus Severus Potter, picking up his first year at Hogwarts where the prologue ends. The dark legacy of being Harry Potter’s youngest son

So what will it be, when will it be set? Is it going to be a story that occurs concurrent to the novels? A side story that was happening whilst Harry battled He Who Must Not Be Named? Or is it something more like a lengthy epilogue or even a sequel? It looks like we will all have to wait for opening night to finally discover just what Harry and co are up to.
If we want to find out we will have to see the play, J.K has said that there are no plans to turn this into a new novel saying on her Twitter account.

To answer one inevitable (and reasonable!) question – why isn’t #CursedChild a new novel? – I am confident that when audiences see the play they will agree that it was the only proper medium for the story.

Another question upon every Potter fan’s lips, who will play Harry? Will we see Daniel Radcliffe reprise his role as the indomitable yet adorably flawed young wizard? After all he has proven his prowess as a theatre actor in Equus, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and The Cripple of Innishmaan, all of which were received with high critical acclaim.
It seems unlikely and to be truthful, if we did have Daniel as Harry, surely we’d need Emma, Rupert, Alan, Michael Gambon in a living/resurrected role as Dumbledore? The logistics of gathering together the entire cast of the films would be nigh on impossible.
This of course means a new Harry, who will step into those very large shoes? We don’t know and as we don’t even know when the play is set, we can’t even guess as we have no idea if we’re looking at an adult Harry, a teenager or even if it’s Harry who is the Lost Child?
Whoever takes on the role of our favourite boy wizard I am certain he will be very well received.

The play is to be presented in two parts with it being designed as an all day occasion, Part 1 as a matinee and Part 2 for the evening, or perhaps over two consecutive days. It is to be shown at The Palace Theatre London, which is to be found on Shaftesbury Ave and if you want tickets, you are advised to sign up up for priority access to tickets via the official production website only – that’s HarryPotterthePlay.com.

YOU HAVE UNTIL 11:45pm BST TOMORROW 24th OCTOBER TO REGISTER.

So what are you waiting for? Apparently for every single Harry Potter fan to see this production it would have to run for over 120 years, so make sure you’re one of the first!