"When Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opened at the Palace Theatre a decade ago, it was event theatre, writ large. Opening just five years after the epic last Potter film and only nine years after the even weightier final book, Jack Thorne's eighth chapter of JK Rowling's blockbuster kiddie wizard series compounded its sense of being a massive event by being performed in two parts, totalling about five hours of theatre."
"Over the years, however, most international productions of The Cursed Child have switched to a relatively streamlined single part show, and indeed London is the only production left to have offered the OG two-part experience. Well, ten years on and it's time to bid a fond 'avada kedavra' to the two-part version, as it's been announced that it'll end its run on September 20, shut for a bit, and then reopen as a more streamlined single play - running just two hours and 55 minutes - from October 6."
"There will clearly be Potter obsessives upset about this, and Rowling haters who will see it as a sign of declining franchise popularity. The truth is, however, that a two-part play is enormously logistically complicated for both company and public. The fact The Cursed Child did a decade in this form - surely the longest such run in history - and will continue at the same, very large theatre is surely testament to its prodigious popularity. Moreover, and not to put too fine a point on it, but there's no reason why the spectacle-heavy story about the time hopping adventures of Harry's son Albus needed to be longer than The prodigious runtime felt as much an ostentatious flourish to stress what a big deal it was as an absolute dramatic necessity."
The West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will convert from its original two-part, roughly five-hour format to a single-part play running two hours and 55 minutes. The two-part version ends its current run on September 20 and the streamlined production reopens on October 6. Most international productions have already adopted the single-part format, leaving London as the last venue offering the original split presentation. The two-part structure created logistical complications for company and public, and the lengthy runtime functioned more as an ostentatious flourish than dramatic necessity. Audiences have about nine months to see the original staging.
Read at Time Out London
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