Let’s face it: if you’re up for watching an almost four-hour play about a middle-aged Harry Potter learning to be a good dad, you are probably fine with an almost six-hour version too. But Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the theatrical sequel to Rowling’s books, has now been tightened from a two-part play to a single three-and-a-half-hour show with an interval.
The new version – which opened in Melbourne last week, replacing the two-parter that began in Australia in 2019 – not only helps pack more audiences in, but it is likely to appeal to those with small children, smaller budgets (a ticket now costs between $60-$220, which is what you used to pay for each part), or people travelling to see it in the smattering of theatres putting it on around the world. The one-parter has also recently launched in San Francisco and on Broadway in New York, and will soon open in Toronto and Tokyo; the longer version will remain, for now, in London and Hamburg.
