FYI SPOILER ALERT! Has The Cursed Child ruined the Harry Potter series?
This is a sentence I never thought I'd say.
Like every Potter nerd, the moment the play AND the script book were announced earlier this year, I had heart palpitations. Let's be honest, who didn't? Instead of partying on Saturday night, I spent the evening at a Harry Potter launch in London, scoffing my face with deathly hallows themed gingerbread and golden snitch truffles. Everything was geared towards this incredible new story that millions of fans had been waiting eight years for to be a huge hit, to defy all expectation and to be this long-awaited masterpiece...
And, if I'm honest, it was just a bit.. meh.
*WARNING - the rest of this post contains HUGE spoilers for Harry Potter & The Cursed Child therefore if you don't want the play or script book to be spoiled for you, look away NOW*
This breaks my heart. I cannot express how much it does. It's one thing to have fallen in love with a series and have that series be the main reason for a lot of your life choices (choosing English as a degree, going into children's fiction publishing) but for that series to then have been disrupted and tarnished is just a whole other situation. It's like finding out that the person you've fallen in love with claps when the plane lands. It's just not ok.
I'm not completely against the idea of the play and the script - I think they were fantastic ideas and I think sometimes (though it comes across as a bit of a money-making scam) these can actually breathe fresh life into an old franchise. But for me, the Cursed Child is a dementor on the Harry Potter series: sucking out the life of an otherwise fantastic seven-part phenomenon.
I don't mean to sound so dramatic and I'm sorry that I don't like it. I've heard plenty of people say the complete opposite and if the reviews of the play are anything to go by then clearly this is a show that people want to see. The script coupled with the characters brought to life and the stage effects may demonstrate a whole other side of the play that one cannot experience just in script form. And the story does have some great elements (I think we can thank J. K. for that). Using the Time-Turner part which was one of the most popular concepts from the franchise from the 3rd instalment (Prisoner of Azkaban) was a clever touch to appeal to fans of the series whilst also adding the ability to go back in time and be reconnected with characters like never before (literally).
But was this also the play's downfall? Or is it because it's written as a script?
One of the flaws to reading the script, and one which I'm sure will change once I actually see the play, is the fact that there isn't any action or thought between the dialogue. I know this is pretty obvious, but given that the dialogue isn't great either, when there is poor dialogue + not much else to go on = a bit of an awkward situation (worse than finding out your loved one claps when the plane lands).
The dialogue, for me, is very stereotypical and cheesy and forced. The best lines come from Ron who interjects every so often with a hilarious quip (usually promoted by alcohol). Whilst there is an element of this being a children's story and therefore it appealing to children's archetypes, those that have grown up with the franchise (and are most probably the predominant audience) are in their twenties now and have passed that predictable-plot-structure stage. There were sentimental parts to Harry Potter, but they worked because whilst J. K. used very caricature-like character traits, she exploited them in new and exciting ways - for instance Hermione ending up with the sidekick instead of the hero.
My main problem with the script is that it doesn't come across as though it's been given the time and attention it needed. It was rumoured that J. K. spent several years on building and creating the franchise before even putting pen to paper. If I'm honest, the Cursed Child comes across as really cringey fan fiction, the kind of thing you'd read from some obsessive Potter fan on a Saturday night sub-reddit. For me, it just doesn't work. A part of me feels the time-turner concept has been overdone. And whilst it's a great concept, J. K. would have been better leaving this in the past (do you like what I've done there?). The twist of Delphi (Voldermort's apparent daughter) at the end, for me also just felt WAY too far fetched - I mean really. Voldemort... A - daughter?! I mean could this get any more Empire Strikes Back. (LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER.)
I was excited when the publication of the script was announced, but I was also frightened to death. Massive fans of a franchise always worry when another instalment to a series that finished long ago is tacked onto the end. Sometimes it works: take Toy Story 3 for instance, but a lot of the time it doesn't - take every sequel from every film that didn't need a sequel... Unfortunately for me, Harry Potter & The Cursed Child script book falls in the latter category. It seems J. K, like Albus and Scorpius's obsession with bringing back Cedric Diggory, should have left Harry Potter alone and firmly in the past. I feel awful for writing this review / rant because I absolutely adore these books, but the Cursed Child was just not my cup of tea. Has it ruined the Harry Potter series..? It's not ruined it, but it's certainly not made it any better.