Harry Potter and the Ring of Steel: security searches for stage show
West End audiences told to arrive an hour early due to checks designed to stop covert filming in theatre
AUDIENCE members at the new Harry Potter play are being ordered to arrive an hour early and will face stringent searches to prevent covert recording. Ticket holders for Harry Potter and
the Cursed Child, billed as the most anticipated theatre event of the past decade, will not be allowed to bring anything larger than a handbag into the Palace Theatre in the West End, and will even face searches during the interval in a determined effort to stop any leaks of the first fresh Potter material in 10 years.
The ring of steel mimics last year’s Barbican staging of
Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, where footage from the production was leaked despite intensive efforts.
The security surrounding the new Harry Potter stage version, which opens on July 30, is also reminiscent of the precautions taken before publication of the books, when barbed wire was installed around the print works and copies of the new novels were delivered in satellite-tracked vans.
The new play is being staged as a two-part production, and audience members will be checked before being admitted to both parts. Organisers have warned anyone trying to record the proceedings will have their device seized and footage deleted.
Fans have taken to social media to express their surprise at the measures, with one describing them as a “pain” and others questioning why the theatre could not ask audience members to arrive 20 minutes before curtain-up like many West End venues.
Last night the production company said the requirements were in place to make sure the show started on time and patrons did not miss their transport home. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is billed as the eighth story in the series and the first official version to be presented on stage. The heavy security is similar to the treatment of audiences at the Potter film premieres, where security guards wearing infra-red goggles patrolled the auditoriums in an effort to stop illicit recordings. In 2003 an employee of Clays printers in Suffolk, which produced the Harry Potter books, was convicted of stealing the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix after he was caught trying to sell the pages for £25,000 to the Sun newspaper.