by A few weeks ago I took my eight year old, Elliott, to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It was the second play of mine that Elliott has seen, having done an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Now, before I get accused of being an egotist who only lets his kid see his own stuff, I want to say that we’ve been to shows with other writers, and he likes a lot of them. That’s just – for two different reasons – I wanted him to see these two things.
We went to A Christmas Carol when he was five. Warning to those who haven’t seen it, but there’s a point where it’s snowing inside the theater and I thought this would be great. What I didn’t fully take into account is that there is a lot of talking that goes on before that. It’s funny and moving – please come and see it – but there’s a lot to take in a five-year-old. He pulled on my arm, a few minutes before the interval, asking: “When will this be over?”
Therefore, he was very anxious when he saw Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Bedtime is my gig in this house of ours, and I had read all seven books. We cried together about the death of several characters. We’ve laughed, we’ve shivered, we’ve been scared (I’m still holding on to the ending of Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince is a gateway drug to body horror.) He loves them more than anything else in his life, and still wears them his good share of his time swinging about dressed in robes.
The play, however, was something different. It can be seen all over our house. Christine Jones and Brett J Banakis designed the company’s rods and we have a picture of mine in our bathroom. Producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender sent me a Cursed Child Elliott plant which I have framed on my office wall. And the play, or my part of it, is dedicated to him. The child has been haunted by the thing. In fact, when I suggested the first reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Elliott refused. It took his cousin Buzz almost a year to convince him that he might like it.
Elliott was a month old when we went into previews. The idea of it was alive through every stage of the writing process. It took me two years to write the play; it took us five to conceive (and seven rounds of IVF). The play is about many things but a lot of it is about a father struggling to bond with his son. Elliott is haunted by Harry Potter and Elliott is haunted by Harry Potter.
We went with Buzz to see it. We chose Saturday for the full day experience (the best way to see it in my opinion). We decided to meet the actors in the break between parts one and two. As the day progressed I went from rabid uncertainty to so proud of the amazing company of people we have making the show and how they give everything to make it special. It’s hard to inherit a role several years after the production opened but, honestly, they were all dazzled. It felt like I was seeing him for the first time again. And Elliott really liked him.
Actors are brilliant, as any writer will tell you. Or most will. Or the writers will be nice. (A good rule of thumb in the creative business of our time is not to trust an actor who rips off the writers, and don’t trust a writer who pulls back on the actors – they’re usually jerks.) Actors who take roles and who finds a way out to possess them even better. Years ago I saw Marisha Wallace do just that in Dreamgirls, taking audiences somewhere extraordinary. Later, Elliott and I saw Cory English in Back to the Future: The Musical (told me I took him to other things) and Cory, who inherited the role, was killed off as Doc Brown. This company that we have now on stage in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, as a group, is just amazing. They have taken our story and made it.
Magic and movement are at the heart of the show. The company is always working. This is not a sit-in-the-back-and-wait-for-your-scenes kind of show. It’s more: in this scene I’m pushing stairs around; in another, I’m holding an actor in mid-air and helping him make an odd eye; in another I’m a wizard at the Ministry of Magic. They sweat like a human doing Steven Hoggett’s beautiful choreography and executing Jamie Harrison’s intricate magic.
We learned from productions that we were very lucky to have around the world. They were introduced by director John Tiffany, Sonia and Colin, and their teams. John could sign this work to others, but together with his entire creative team, they make the show sing all over the world. We are currently playing in Japan, Germany, New York and London. On our eighth anniversary in London, we go into rehearsals for our first North American tour, and more changes will be needed, and John is busy sharpening his pencils for that. With each new version we are working with new actors and new audiences and this allows John to see the play anew. Illusion will be reworked, line rethought, costume rethought, and the changes will come back through all our productions, making them better.
Creating Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was a very beautiful and intense experience. We worked together in such close proximity, I always joked (kind of) that it was like being back at school, only this time I liked some people. (I know, I’m pathetic.) But it was an intensity that I never came to terms with. Taking Elliott to see him squared a circle that somehow made sense to me. The play is a play about love, and it’s made by people who love, and Elliott brought that love to light.
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child continues at the Palace Theatre, London
