--- title: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Play Review: London description: While many Harry Potter fans might have preferred a new movie or a book, this is a story that feels made for the stage. canonical: https://time.com/4422192/harry-potter-cursed-child-play-review/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-25T23:01:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:42.091Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Works Serious Magic og:description: Light spoilers ahead for Harry Potter fans og:url: https://time.com/4422192/harry-potter-cursed-child-play-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75cc1087a4603fef/69889f29656a3f5e6bbcc722/harry-potter-play-facebook.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 3330 og:image:height: 1748 og:image:alt: harry-potter-play-facebook og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Works Serious Magic twitter:description: Light spoilers ahead for Harry Potter fans twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75cc1087a4603fef/69889f29656a3f5e6bbcc722/harry-potter-play-facebook.jpg?branch=production ---  # Review: _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_ Works Serious Magic on the West End Stage > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Theo Bosanquet/London](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## Theo Bosanquet/London Jul 25, 2016 11:01 PM UTC  Jamie Parker as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Jamie Parker as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.Manuel Harlan by [Theo Bosanquet/London](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## Theo Bosanquet/London Jul 25, 2016 11:01 PM UTC The Palace Theatre in London’s West End has seen many hits over the years, _Les Miserables_ among them. But surely nothing can compare to the hysteria surrounding its latest tenant, the eighth installment of the [Harry Potter](http://time.com/4419620/harry-potter-ginny-weasley-daniel-radcliffe-bonnie-wright-photo/) saga, titled [_Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_](http://time.com/4417481/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-book-download-pre-order/). Nine years after the final novel’s publication, J.K. Rowling’s most beloved characters are back in a two-part play created by Rowling, playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany. Anticipation has been feverish around the world; tickets are as hard to catch as a Golden Snitch, and producer Sonia Friedman has [compared the endeavor](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jul/21/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-west-end-palace-theatre) to opening a _Star Wars_ movie in a single cinema. And yet there’s been little advance word on the ground since previews opened. Rowling and her acolytes have successfully convinced early viewers to keep silent about the play’s story. Call the auditorium a chamber of secrets. The uncharitable might surmise that this was to cover up negative word of mouth. After all, the creative team faced the daunting challenge of honoring the expectations of fans who can measure their childhoods by the Harry Potter novels while also offering a fully rounded work of drama, instead of a theme park ride to be franchised around the world. But the truth is that they have succeeded on both fronts. This enchantment will turn even the most doubting Muggles into true believers. The story picks up where [_Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_](http://time.com/4386952/harry-potter-daniel-radcliffe-role/) left off. The middle-aged Harry and his wife Ginny are seeing their younger son Albus off from platform nine and three-quarters of King’s Cross Station, alongside married couple Ron and Hermione and their daughter Rose. But all is not well. Harry’s relationship with Albus is complicated. His son labors under the weight of his legacy and soon finds an unlikely soulmate in Scorpius Malfoy, himself struggling to shift a rumor that he is Lord Voldemort’s son. The duo become a trio of outsiders with the arrival of the punkish Delphi, niece of an aging Amos Diggory. Amos is still grieving for his son Cedric, who lost his life competing with Harry in the infamous Triwizard tournament portrayed in _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_. It’s the elder Diggory’s desire to rewrite history that sets in motion a chain of events that will spin the Wizarding World back into darkness. Cynics have suggested the decision to split the play into two parts rather than one smacks of commercial exploitation, echoing the way the final book was broken in two on screen. But _Cursed Child_ could only be told over the five hours that splitting it into two allows. It’s a fiendishly complex narrative, and moves at a lick; the first two years of Albus’s time at Hogwarts are told in the first fifteen minutes. Considering each of the books covers the course of a single year, this marks a radical change of approach. While many Potter fans might have preferred a new movie or a book, this is a story that feels made for the stage. Yes, it’s packed with effects as characters cast spells, fly and even transform, achieved through old school stagecraft rather than digital trickery. But Thorne and Tiffany also conjure up moments of intimate drama; it’s telling that the biggest gasp in Part One came not from a twist of the plot or a moment of magic but during a blazing argument between Harry and Albus where the father firmly crosses a line. In these scenes between father and son, Jamie Parker as Harry captures a sort of tortured celebrity anxiety, suggesting his concerns about Albus’s shortcomings are in part driven by ego, and in part an orphan’s struggle to connect with his child. ### Meet the Cast of _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_  From left: Alex Price as Draco Malfoy, Paul Thornley as Ron Weasley, Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger, Jamie Parker as Harry Potter, and Poppy Miller as Ginny Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  Jamie Parker as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  From left: Jamie Parker as Harry Potter and Sam Clemmett as Albus Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  The cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  From left: Poppy Miller as Ginny Potter and Jamie Parker as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  From left: Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger, Jamie Parker as Harry Potter and Paul Thornley as Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  From left: Anthony Boyle as Scorpius Malfoy and Sam Clemmett as Albus Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  From left: Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger, Paul Thornley as Ron Weasley and Jamie Parker as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  Jamie Parker as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan  The cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Manuel Harlan Hermione and Ron (Noma Dumezweni and Paul Thornley) are afforded more opportunities by the narrative to have fun, and garner some of the biggest laughs of the plays. But _Cursed Child_ is really about the next generation, and it’s the younger cast that steal the show, especially Sam Clemmett as Albus and Anthony Boyle as Scorpius. The self-described pair of “losers” are recognizably human and distinct from their family traits; Clemmett captures the frustration of the delicate and troubled Albus, and Boyle is both hilarious and heartbreaking as his bumbling, devoted friend Scorpius, whose blond thatch is the only sign of his Malfoy heritage. Boyle’s scenes with father Draco, portrayed by Alex Price as a swaggering cockney, mirror those between Albus and Harry, and build to their own moving conclusion. Just as Rowling’s novels captured some of the challenges and joys of growing up, this story is about the bond between parents and their children—appropriate, perhaps, now that the novels’ original readers are themselves becoming parents. By the time it ends, the mystery in its title—_just who is the cursed child?_—has some surprising answers, and suggests that the inevitability of pain is itself a curse we all must bear. One legacy of the Potter books is the way they turned a whole generation on to reading. _Cursed Child_ will perform this same service for theatre, as Potter-mad millennials pack the stalls. For that alone it deserves the unending run it will surely now receive. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4422192/harry-potter-cursed-child-play-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4422192/harry-potter-cursed-child-play-review/"},"headline":"Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Works Serious Magic on the West End Stage","datePublished":"2016-07-25T23:01:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:42.091Z","description":"The latest installment of Harry Potter's story may be London's answer to New York's Hamilton","url":"https://time.com/4422192/harry-potter-cursed-child-play-review/","keywords":["Theater"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75cc1087a4603fef/69889f29656a3f5e6bbcc722/harry-potter-play-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Theo Bosanquet/London"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt75cc1087a4603fef/69889f29656a3f5e6bbcc722/harry-potter-play-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"harry-potter-play-facebook","caption":"Jamie Parker as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.","creditText":"Manuel Harlan","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4422192/harry-potter-cursed-child-play-review/","name":"Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Works Serious Magic on the West End Stage"}}]}] ```