After selling 175,000 Harry Potter tickets within 8 hours of priority booking when they went on sale on 28th October 2015, the opportunity has come again to buy from the next issue: 250,000 new tickets go on sale from 11 am today (4th of August).
These tickets will be for performances up until December 2017, and are currently priced between £15 and £70 (down from £30- £130 of the first installment). Reselling has been banned after reports of tickets being resold for up to £3000.
The tickets are available on multiple platforms– Nimax theaters or ATG Tickets websites, or on the number 0330 333 4813. There is also The Friday Forty, where 40 customers at random can buy some of the best tickets every week on Friday at 1 p.m.
This craze is not surprising considering it is something related to Harry Potter, but it has also given rise to frustration. The productions, owing to their very nature, will not be available to a major section of fans, simply on account of the location.
This is all the more disappointing because the play has been receiving rave reviews since its opening night on 30th July, when both the parts of the play (for the uninitiated, the play is divided into two parts) opened officially.
Most of the major publications have awarded the production five stars, among them The Stage, The Independent, WhatsOnStage.com, The Evening Standard, and The Telegraph. The Guardian’s Michael Billington awarded it four stars.
The Chicago Tribunes’ Chris Jones is thrilled by the dense narrative, rightly downgrading the movies (which were mostly dampeners when compared to the books). He especially praised set designer Christine Jones and the special effects Supervisors Jeremy Chernick and Jamie Harrison.
The New York Times’ Ben Brantley is thrilled by the play right from its enchanting opening. He is particularly impressed by Noma Dumezweni’s Hermione and Jamie Parker’s Harry, while remarking on its captivating quality.
The Guardian and The Variety’s Matt Trueman were also all praises especially for young Anthony Boyle, who portrays Scorpius Malfoy. Malfoy is Draco’s sleek, geeky, witty son, whose performance was defined as career-defining, and he has been hailed as a new favorite.
Scorpius Malfoy does have all the qualities to be the new favorite. From being inherently different from his controversial father to being a true friend to Albus Potter, from giving quirky replies during a face-off with an Augery to being wistful for Rose, he is the new kid on the block.
Scorpius Malfoy is the thing to look most forward to in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a play which some may think to be harping too much on our sacred nostalgia.
In addition to his affable nerdiness, the fact that he is most troubled by issues not stemming from his father (daddy issues being the driving force in this play) but by insecurities about friendship with Albus is a touch of brilliance on Rowling’s part.
The hysteria notwithstanding, not everyone is pleased with the latest product of the franchise, and for widely different reasons.
Many fans did not even notice that this book is not a novel. What these readers missed were the repeated announcements, even from Rowling herself in Twitter, that while this is based on an original story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany, it is the script of the new play by Jack Thorne.