Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - SPOILER THREAD

Here's my tuppence on it, full of spoilers but it's a spoiler thread right?.I came away from part 1 disappointed, I thought the effects were incredible but the whole thing lacked pace and was overwritten and too long. Particularly the second act of part 1 felt really long with the scene in the library between Scorpius and Albus feeling like an eternity.

The second part was much better, I enjoyed act 1 immensely and thought it really found its feet, there were a few great moments of staging in it, the tech really is amazing. At the interval I was ready to declare undying love for it but then in act 2 I felt it sagged a bit again. For me the issues with it are the big expositional bits where characters talk about exactly what they're going to do and why in case we didn't quite get it. There's not a lot of subtext and at times the father stuff hits you over the head too much. I really didn't like the actor playing Dumbledore/Diggory sr and so maybe that detracted from my enjoyment of the scene where Dumbledore has a heart to heart with Harry, I'm not quite sure I buy this convenient mirror of the harry/albus plotline coming from a portrait it seems so out of character for Dumbledore but the audience largely bought it and there was lots of sniffles. There was a scene where Scorpius tells Albus what he's learned during the play and vice versa that was entirely made of subtext and again with Harry and Albus at the end. I guess these things will improve as the script develops but at the moment that's what lets it down for me - the 'this is how I feel' and the 'this is how my character has changed during the story' dialogue which was a bit hamfisted. It probably should have ended when Hagrid reappears in Godric's Hollow

Didn't love the music either and sometimes the Tiffany staging reminded me too much of his other things and so that took me out of the wizarding world.

Sorry this has been nitpicking and a bit negative so far. I will say that overall I did enjoy it, it serves as a great dip into the world again and seeing your fav characters again is magical, the effects are out of this world great and worth going to see them alone. It's such a difficult task and they did better than I could do so I applaud the show. Would it work as a play if you didn't know Harry Potter? just about. Is this now canon? not necessarily, it feels like when they do cartoon spin offs of film franchises.

Hey, (board lurker) so I just saw both parts yesterday and thought I'd drop in my two cents. As a play in itself I thought it was brilliant! The staging and the way they pull off the magic left me in awe, I think my favourite bits are -
- the ripple effect every time they time travel
- the whole ending of part one with Dolores and the dementors coming down. The one that goes over the audience genuinely scared me, I had goosebumps! It's so well done, the look of them is perfect.
- the casting is spot on. Noma plays the perfect Hermione, a massive F you to everyone who questioned her casting. I really liked Jamie and Paul as well, and I think Scorpius could be one of my new favourite HP characters! He's so funny and quirky, Anthony nails it.
- I actually really liked the music, and the little choreographed numbers that broke up scenes.
- all of the polyjuice scenes were great, but especially the one when albus et al sneak into the ministry as Ron/Hermione/Harry, the acting was spot on during that scene and the older cast leaving through the door and coming out from the other side of the stage was crazy! The actor switch there was faultless.

There were probably more bits I really enjoyed, but oddly it all seems to have vanished a bit? Not all the scenes have stuck in my head.
I do feel like it has a few problems though:
- one being I don't think it entirely works as a new Harry Potter story, I just didn't buy it? It felt like fan fiction. i think overall I enjoyed part one more, even though at times it felt like a magic trick show as opposed to a play, part two felt like it needed more work.
- I didn't buy Esther as Delphi at all, and as other people have said when she went 'bad' it screamed panto! That's all I could think of, how very very panto-ish it made the show feel, I don't know if it's the actress that just can't pull it off or that the characters not fleshed out enough, but it needs a lot of work, for me anyway.
- Bellatrix as her mother is crap. There was an audible gasp in the audience when that bombshell was dropped, some people saying told you so etc. For me, that just felt stupid. At no point watching it did I ever feel like I needed to know who her mother was, it was nice being a 'mystery' and it just felt wrong and like it was put there for shock value and to name drop another character. Time wise i'm pretty sure it doesn't fit in with the books, and Draco not knowing about her seems like a big plot hole.
- As someone else said McGonagall felt way out of character.
- the Dursleys seemed shoehorned in there and not really relevant? Unless I'm missing something?

There was no audience reaction when Dumbledore showed up, but massive applause for Snape even before he came on stage. Every time a character name was dropped there were ooooohs and arrrrrrrrs. Overall I really did love it, I feel I always tend to remember more negatives than positives when I see new things, but I have tickets to see it again in two weeks, so it'll be nice to see if any things changed or if the story's been tightened.

I know the majority of people who see this will be fans, but I wonder how someone whose maybe not read the books, seen the films or doesn't know them in great detail would fare seeing the play? I felt like it involved a lot of backstory and previous character knowledge that could potentially make the story a bit more difficult to grasp.

Building it all around Cedric's death is one of my favourite parts of the play. His death didn't influence the plot much, but it was a turning point for the entire series, when the stakes were suddenly raised.

I think it's a projection across the whole set which is layered on during lighting changes so you don't notice it's there?

I don't really know how to begin as I think I'm still processing everything that went on! I absolutely loved being in this audience! I'll never get over all the ghasps at certain points and reveals.

Story wise it's not what I was expecting, I don't know what I was expecting but it was very clever haha!

That time turner wobble is definitely projection.

I'll get my few negatives out:

Having read through the whole thread this is going to be unpopular (I know, there's a thread for that!) but I wasn't that impressed with Noma's Hermione. The two nights I was there I just never felt much emotion coming from her, especially in her line delivery. I had no issues when she was cast. There were bits I thought were brilliant from her. Perhaps it's all caught up with her with what I'm guessing has been a lot of tweaks etc.

The actress playing Delphie (I don't have my programme to hand) I thought wasn't able to portray her character. She never seemed strong or powerful or anything like the Bellatrix we know. Pretty much everything I thought about her has been echoed in this thread so I'll leave it at that.

I didn't love the Hagrid scenes, especially the scene at the end in end at Godrics Hollow, still reeling from what we've witnessed I think it pulled that moment away from us too quickly and I just feel like Chris hasn't quite nailed Hagrid yet. But that'll come. He's got plenty time.


Positives:

All the effects were just perfect, everything I wanted and more. The dueling in the church was just so cool.

The end of Part 1 was just insane, scary and thrilling all at once. Just a massive WOW moment.

Dementors were absolutely awesome.

Thought the cast were so strong and slick, some real great characterisations and I can't wait to see them grow into the character even more with time.

Visually perfect.

Absolutely loved Snapes scenes and they made me emotional about him as a character all over again.



I'm sure there's more but I'm at work! I kind of need someone to keep saying 'what did you think of this' to get me talking more haha. 

I went yesterday and Tuesday. It was really a great experience. The audience buzz was really great to be a part of.

What I liked: I really enjoyed the friendship between Albus and Scorpius. There was almost a subversive element to the story. Albus is a hero while also being the antithesis of Harry (Slytherin, lacks friends, bad at magic etc). Scorpius is as un-Malfoy as you'd expect. There is a part of me that questions whether someone who would come from such a twisted family would be such a functioning, good person, but that can be looked over. I enjoyed that it all seemed to break away from Rowling's all to often monochromatic view of the four Hogwarts house's representing very one dimensional archetypes. That was nice.

Did the story warrant two parts? I'm not sure. The time turning plot was fun but becomes a bit too convoluted at times. It could have definitely been streamlined and tightened up by removing the Dursley/Hagrid flashbacks. It was very much structured around the fourth book, so you better have boned up on that before going. The use of the time turning storyline makes you sense very early on that things will be reset, which removes a lot of tension. Like someone has previously said in this thread, there was a definite whiff of fanfiction, but maybe that's just because we've each become so engrained with our own personal imaginations of what happened post-epilogue. 

Like everyone else has said, the actress playing Delphi wasn't able to convey what was needed. There was no sense of threat at all. And it was all very panto. 

Anyone know if they plan to make any more changes?

Saw this Thursday/Friday and for reasons already stated in the no spoilers thread, wasn't much taken with part 1. Though the ending was fantastic! I was in the dress circle and could tell there was something afoot because I saw a wire head up to the box a few minutes before. Hadn't expected that, though! I didn't manage to see if the Dementor was human or animatronic, I'm afraid. (Rumours that I was hiding my eyes behind my hands at that point will be firmly denied, ahem.)

I found part 2 much better. There was much more character-driven drama (Harry/Dumbledore confrontation, Draco/Harry heart to heart, etc) which is the sort of thing I love. Great use of projection bringing the audience into the story at the interval. (Lots of wall examining going on as people scoffed their ice creams!) Very happy to see Snape, always my favourite Potter character. And the actors had slowed down their delivery, thank God, which made the plot easier to follow and stopped me worrying on their behalf about fluffed lines.

Has anyone seen it from the stalls? It felt like Voldemort didn't have time to make it to the rear of the theatre (I assume that's where he went, I couldn't see) before they started playing the audio of Lily/James' murders...?

I thought Scorpius was a fantastic addition to the Potter world but I really struggled with Albus. He sounded a bit like Michael Crawford in Some Mothers Do Ave Em for my liking. Also, the character starts whiny and gets progressively whinier, which made him hard to sympathise with. Rose was also really unlikeable (and a bit pointless, really. She only seemed to exist to feed lines to male characters). It's like she had all Hermione's confidence but none of her vulnerability. I had trouble believing Ron/Hermione would have raised such an unpleasant child.

But I must say how nice it is, after years of feeling uncomfortable when Daniel Radcliffe took his shirt off, to finally be able to have an age-appropriate crush on Harry Potter. ;-)

Yes, in that sense you're absolutely right, Baemax.

Sorry, my fault for not making myself clear. I meant from the point of view that though Hermione could be a know-it-all at Hogwarts, she did seem to have at least some awareness that her peers didn't really like smart kids, which gave her some vulnerability and that made her likeable. Without that slight self-consciousness, Rose is harder to like.

So - I can finally step back into this thread! Saw both parts yesterday and am still generally processing a lot of it. I even ended up doing some digging last night to see if there is a reasonable timeframe for Bellatrix to fall preggers and have the sprog before the Gringotts break in and the Battle of Hogwarts (there is, if she was pregnant by Dumbledore's death).

Anyway - the plays. I felt they fit in well to the original books. Hinging it all on the Triwizard Tournament made a great deal of sense, it was a turning point in the books. I felt as if the first hour was predominantly there to coax the audience in and believe this is an extension to the original plot, once that's done the plot can really take off. I was pleased by the constant references back and how intrinsically the story wraps around the original books, as well as taking off on its own direction. 

During the first half of the second part, I did start to wonder whether Delphi was actually a remarkably young looking Bellatrix, owing to the fact her name is mentioned in the programme but very few other characters were. I guess I was half right! I didn't have any problems with Esther's portrayal, the script deliberately hides the fact she's the baddie until the reveal - and I don't think we are meant to work it out before. Scorpius' reaction to her before strikes more of jealousy at her attention towards Albus than a genuine distrust of her (until the owlery scene). Actually, for anyone who was at the first pair of previews - was there a flying owl in that scene as well, or just for the letter moment in the first part?

I share some thoughts of others towards the ending - Hagrid taking Harry away from Godric's Hollow is a nice touch, but I think somehow messed up by the casual slinging over the shoulder as he turns. I know he's literally "plucked from the flames", but it's somehow easier to accept that than the baby simply becoming a blanket. It's one of the very few moments which feels as if it is there for a laugh or a stage reaction where it needn't be. I'm glad we saw the two boys getting on again afterwards, I almost wanted to see Draco/Harry have some interaction at the end, but ending on a Harry/Albus scene was the only sensible conclusion.


That said - we see very little of Rose in school except for when interacting with Albus and Scorpius, so we don't really have much of a sense as to how likeable she is among her peers do we? Mind you, she is the daughter of the Minister for Magic, so she's bound to have a few people giving her a wide berth.

See, I think that's why they have her heartlessly kill that student (Greg? Don't know why that name is in my head). But that moment on the night I was there fell flat. No ghasps. I think it has to do with the delivery of her 'avada kedavra'.

Not to sound like Hermione but a lot of the casts spell delivery could use some work, or made clearer.

I wasn't much convinced by the idea of him walking through the audience. I get it, so everyone can face out while we hear the next scene - but it strikes a bit too much along the line of the pantomime villain for my liking.