Harry Potter and the cursed child – a review.

Let’s try a book review for a change!

Nineteen years after the battle of Hogwarts Harry Potter's son Albus Severus Potter is going on the Hogwart's express for his first year at Hogwart's school of magic and wizardy. There he makes a friend named Scorpious Malfoy and together they start an adventure through time, magic and prophecy.

Disclaimer: I read the book. I haven't seen the play. But I do know my way around theatre. Sufficient to say a book is as different from a theatre-performance as a theatre-performance is to a movie. Each has their own ways of 'doing' things. As a philosopher once said: ‘A theatre-show is like a butcher's knife as a movie is to a scalpel’ (paraphrasing of course). Sufficient to say is that during this spoiler free review I will try to focus on the letters on the page -but I won't be able to help myself, at times, to focus a bit on the, to me unseen, played-out version.

I got this one at Christmas; and I, pretty much, read through it in one go (as a lot of plays it’s quite an easy read).

Is it a good play? No, it’s not Shakespeare! Is it a good part of the Harry Potter series? Yes, definitely –though there are some things I disliked or wondered about.

Those two statements above should be taken with a grain of salt. Harry Potter and the cursed child has no intention of being a Shakespearian-story. A lot of the action that takes place in the play/book hinges on ’new’ technology like wires, puppetry and Virtual Reality (I guess, I haven’t seen the play) to create a show, a spectacle if you will. And for that purpose the story is more than adequate. Adequate enough -I would say- to be a full grown part of the Harry Potter-saga.

Just to clarify; a small side note here. Shakespeare can also be found guilty of spectacle. He wrote what people wanted him to write. Heck, the whole globe theatre burned down after the first performance of Henry the VIII - spectacle. So this whole comparison of mine is off key. But to emphasize the statement that I want to make: Harry Potter and the cursed child relies more on giving people what they want, instead of being its own! And that, to me, if you consider this a fault, is the fault!

What I liked

Let’s start with one or two things I liked: I love, adore, what-a-sweet-let-me-pinch-your-cheek-adorable is the Scorpious character. He’s funny, witty and entirely against the character you’d expect. Even though the play is called ‘Harry Potter’ it might as well be called ‘Scorpious’ because he’s just as much a main character as Albus and Harry.

Albus then is a bit more sulky and therefore a tad more difficult to identify with. Nonetheless the pages allow the reader (and I expect the viewer) to invest in him.

Harry and the ol’ gang then are refreshing to read. You think you know them by now

and yes it is paramount that you know the Harry Potter-books by heart if you go and watch this show/read this play.

and still they manage to surprise you with character quirks that feel strange and familiar at the same time. I think the best example of this is in the Ron/Hermione dynamic. Hermione is a smart woman but she makes some crucial mistakes in this play –so she’s fallible and that makes her human. Ron, on the other hand, is a prankster, a bit of a fool. But not when it comes to his wife and children, then he’s dead serious. It’s this balance this couple strikes that exemplifies the layers of the (beloved) characters.

Another thing I liked (on a personal level) is the time-travel subplot.

 

This review is meant to be spoiler free but I think I can get away with this one.

I love time-travel stories. And Harry Potter and the cursed child doesn’t disappoint. Though I must admit that –as time travel stories go- this one isn’t the strongest of the bunch (Azkaban’s one is much stronger). Nonetheless as a ‘means’ to get to the aforementioned ‘spectacle’ this plot works perfectly. And, at times, I certainly wondered how the stage play would produce several effects required (like, for instance, a whole underwater scene)?

A last bit of things I certainly loved is the expansion of the lore. This is where the internet has truly become a dangerous place to be if you wish to remain unspoilered. Sufficient to say I like the new elements and rules added to the Harry Potter universe (go trolley-lady!).

What I disliked

Then what did I dislike? I loved the characters, the lore and the time-travel. I even fantasized about the effects the show might pull off. Then what did I dislike?

I said before that this wish for spectacle places the focus more on the effects of the stage play than the written story ‘underneath’. And since this is a book review it are the words I’m reviewing; not the effects or the acting of a show I’ve never seen. But it happens a bit too often, for my taste, that Harry Potter and the cursed child shoehorns in (fan favorite) characters just to satisfy the audience. Hagrid shows up for a second or two, so does Umbridge and even uncle Vernon. These characters don’t have a lot to add to the core story. They are just there and then they’re gone.

The basic rule of writing is that every character needs to have a purpose. These three examples of characters do have a purpose in the seven books –but not in this play. Here they serve nothing more than a  cameo.

What else did I dislike? Well this is where spoiler-free gets rather tricky. Something happens near to end that reminded me about something I wrote before in my review of The lone ranger. In this movie a whole tribe of native American’s are slaughtered for no other reason but to show how evil the villains are. The same happens in Indiana Jones and the crystal skull. And a whole planet or two in Star Wars the force awakens. And I don’t like this plot device! Killing people the viewer/reader doesn’t even know about/hasn’t had time to invest in –doesn’t work for me.

The same (sort of) thing happens in Harry Potter and the cursed child. An unknown character gets hurt in some way or another just because and I am left feeling both intrigued and empathic to know who this character is –but denied any knowledge.

Then, as a final bit of critique, I would like to add the fast pace of the story. Again it is spectacle (with a rotating stage no less), but some scenes are a bit too short for me.

More so, I would have preferred a bit of character description at the start of the book, plus some kind of description of the stage. For me it always remained a bit of a guessing game how old certain characters were.

Conclusion

So three big plusses and three minor minuses. Harry Potter and the cursed child, to me, is a worthy follow-up to the Harry Potter series. Though I think it is a story that needs to be seen instead of read. Reading it is a rewarding expansion on beloved characters and the lore of this magical world. Watching it though, is –I expect- a thrill ride for the senses!