07 June 2016 - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Activer le mode zenLyn Gardner (The Guardian, 07/06/2016)
Many are already calling it the theatrical event of the decade. Tonight, the first part of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has its first preview at the Palace theatre in London. Set 19 years after the end of JK Rowling’s last Potter novel, the two-part play continues the story of Harry who is now working at the Ministry of Magic while his son Albus negotiates his own way through Hogwarts.
With John Tiffany as director, Jack Thorne as writer and Steven Hoggett doing the movement, the play brings together the team behind the stage version of Let the Right One In. That show’s combination of a magical otherworldliness and a spine-tingling exploration of very real teenage angst should be an admirable fit with Harry Potter.
Back in 2007, Harvard Business Review cited Harry Potter as a genius example of a product that matured with its customer base, thereby retaining them and ensuring that they keep buying through young adulthood and beyond. The only equivalent I can think of in theatre is Les Misérables, which stays the same but retains an audience. People often get taken to Les Mis as a child, then they might see it again as a young adult and then take their own kids to see it, so generating that repeat business which is so essential to keep a show afloat in the West End.
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Not a prequel
(The Telegraph, 06/06/2016)
This is something Rowling has been insistent about since the beginning – and was able to substantiate more fully in February when it was announced that the play would be set 19 years after the events of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Rowling has since expanded on how the book's epilogue, which sees Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and their offspring board the Hogwarts Express for the first time, connects with the play: "The epilogue of the seventh book is a very clear pointer as to where I was interested in going,” she told the Guardian.
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Keeping previews secret
Lisa O'Carroll (The Guardian, 06/06/2016)
Reduced price previews for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre begin on Tuesday, with the author and production team also asking newspaper theatre critics to wait eight weeks before publishing reviews.
“You’ve been amazing for years at keeping Harry Potter secrets so you didn’t spoil the books for readers who came after you,” she said in a video message. “So I’m asking you one more time to keep the secrets and let audiences enjoy Cursed Child with all the surprises that we’ve got to the story.”
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Racism Row
Grace Dent (The Telegraph, 06/06/2016)
“With my experience of social media,” said JK Rowing, discussing the casting of Swaziland-born, Olivier award winning actress Noma Dumezweni in the stage role of Hermione Granger, “I thought that idiots were going to idiot. But what can you say? That's the way the world is. Noma was chosen because she was the best actress for the job.”
Rowling went on to describe critics of the choice as “a bunch of racists”. She is, to my mind, completely right, and her devil-may-care attitude to causing a social media rumpus is relentlessly pleasing.
On Twitter, Rowling is forthright on Scottish politics, sporting loyalties and her regrets over Harry Potter plots. She speaks without fetter, riding each ensuing 72 hours of rapey backwash and bile from mum’s box bedroom with a steely, nay, raffish veneer.
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"07 June 2016 - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), juillet 2016. Consulté le 24/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2016/07-june-2016-harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child