en years on from its premiere, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been transformed from an epic two-part play into a richly absorbing one-part production. A similar version is already running to great acclaim on Broadway but it still feels risky to tinker with a show that has come to feel like a fixed jewel in the West End. Happily, that risk has paid off and Cursed Child hasn't lost any of its sparkle.
Admittedly, there are some drawbacks to reducing Jack Thorne's ambitious five-hour script into a very tightly packed three hours. The plot can, at times, overwhelm. The story, which picks up nearly 20 years on from JK Rowling's final book, focuses on Harry's youngest son, Albus – freshly arrived at Hogwarts and determined to make a name for himself distinct from his famous dad. When Albus and his best friend Scorpius Malfoy stumble across a time-turner, the two unleash some seriously dark forces. It will take an incredibly complicated plot-twist, which I suspect only Thorne himself understands, to save the day.
Even with a streamlined script – key characters are cut and dream sequences nixed – the story can get in the way of John Tiffany's spellbinding production. But, oh, the places that story takes us! There are brave boys swimming through shimmering lakes and frightened adults sliding through flaming fireplaces. Transporting telephone boxes and dazzling transformation spells. Exploding sweets. Glowing wands. And terrifying dementors, looming over us like some awful nightmare and whooshing right through the stalls and skimming over our upturned faces.
Woven through it all is Steven Hoggett's beautiful movement direction, which keeps the production moving forward and creates a sense of mystery and magic at every turn. The huge ensemble cast – which seem to move as one – work wonders with their cloaks, sweeping them with precision and flair. All of this plays out on Christine Jones's simple but stunning set, with its huge arches and great open dark spaces, which seem to hint at bigger, darker powers at play, just out of sight and beyond our control.
The show's visual majesty is complemented by some fine performances, the very best of them laced through with sparks of humour. At the show I watched, Albus Potter was played by understudy Ewan Rutherford, who had a lovely flinty sort of defiance to him. Bill Stanley, on his West End debut, was especially good as Albus's friend (perhaps crush) Scorpius – voice always on the verge of breaking, frightened of everything but all the braver for it. David Ricardo-Pearce's Harry Potter is a man weighed down with responsibility, Thomas Aldridge's Ron funny but just a little bit sad too and Naana Agyei-Ampadu's Hermione commanding but vulnerable.
It's a great cast but, even better in a celebrity-packed West End, there's not a superstar in sight. The real star of this show is – with huge credit to illusionist Jamie Harrison – the magic we all come to believe in together. The portrait that talks. The stairs that dance. The man who flies. And the boy who lives.