HARRY POTTER’S HOME
There is a lot to see around London for fans of the wizard
The stately Palace Theatre has been a fixture in London’s West End for more than a century, hosting immortal stars like Fred Astaire and blockbuster shows like Les Misérables. But its latest production has turned it into something different: a shrine. Walk by any day and you will see wide-eyed tourists staring up in awe, often pulling out their smartphones to record the tableau outside the hottest show in town — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
On a morning in early July, I walked up to the box office and inquired as to when people start to line up in hopes of getting returned tickets. The cashier smiled in an ever-so-English mixture of sympathy and disdain.
“Well, you might try now. For tomorrow night’s show.” Meaning: a 36-hour camp-out to try for tickets that might never appear.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is sold out until mid-2017. Time Out London magazine reports the online waiting list runs into the hundreds of thousands.
The J.K. Rowling magic remains powerful, even if she provided only the story idea for the Cursed Child and did not write the show herself.
But even if you do not have access to the legendary tickets, there is much in London and environs to amuse the Potter fanatic in your family.
You can start at King ’s Cross Station, home of the fictional Platform 93/4, where Harry, Hermione and ensemble boarded the Hogwart’s Express. Never mind that the exteriors were actually filmed at the more fetching St. Pancras International station across the street.
For the purposes of photo ops, King’s Cross has erected a mockup of a luggage cart disappearing into a wall. Waiting time at the busiest time averages 40 minutes and more. You can take your own picture, or the folks from the adjacent Platform 93/4 shop will snap a professional one for you, complete with a Gryffindor or Slytherin scarf, for a cost of £9.50 (about $16 Cdn).
BritMovieTours offers a threehour guided tour of locations around the city where scenes were filmed. Australia House stood in for Gringott’s Wizarding Bank. The Leadenhall Market posed as Diagon Alley and the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.
Our witty guide Derry was a fount of Potter trivia. The bridge across the Thames that was shaken to bits by Death Eaters was the Millennium Bridge, which in real life has had its shaky moments. Londoners nicknamed it the Wobbly Bridge after it started swaying on opening day in 2000. It closed for two years for modifications, but is now quite sturdy and well worth walking across, thanks to its spectacular view of the city.
The biggest Potter draw remains the Warner Brothers Studio Tour in Leavesden, on the northern outskirts of the city. My 11-yearold enjoyed seeing the set for the Great Hall and the massive model of Hogwart’s that was used for the grand, sweeping aerial shots in the movies.
The Potter money-making machine magically extracts currency from your wallet throughout the venue. Your child can be filmed and photographed flying over Hogwart’s, thanks to green screen technology.
Thinking that we had drunk fully of Potter potion, there was one more plot twist. My wife, heedless of my warnings of the futility of obtaining Cursed Child tickets, made a stop at the box office two days after me. There must have been magic in the air because several producer’s tickets were returned just as she arrived. Out came her credit card, up went her balance, and off we went to see both parts in a preview performance.
The producers are running a #keepthesecrets campaign, asking all who have seen it to not reveal plot twists. However, it is no spoiler to report that our young Potter fan was so disappointed after Part One that she asked to leave. Having shelled out upwards of $500 for tickets, she was required to sit through it all.
Happily, she enjoyed Part Two much more, giving the whole fivehour-plus marathon a moderate thumbs up.
The tough London critics were more effusive, lavishing rave reviews when it opened at the end of July — likely ensuring tickets will be harder to locate than Voldemort’s nose.