Potted Potter by Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner. Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse, April 3 – 7, 2024.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening Night April 4
Creatives
Writers and Co-creators: Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner
Director: Richard Hurst; Associate Director: Hanna Berrigan
Designer: Simon Scullion
Lighting Designer: Tim Mascall; Composer: Phil Innes
Production Relighter: Andrew Haden; Line Producer: Jared Harford
Producer: James Seabright
Cast
Scott Hoatson (as “Scott” playing Harry Potter and others)
Brendan Murphy (as “Brendan” playing Voldemort and all the others)
Alternate: Jacob Jackson
The most serious thing I can say about the ‘parody’ of all seven Harry Potter books in seventy minutes is that it’s just too funny for words. This may make my review seem as silly as the show itself – except that Potted Potter is not as silly as it looks.
Written by the British equivalents of our ABC’s Playschool presenters, known on the Children’s BBC as Dan and Jeff, behind the entertainment of the whole theatre audience excitedly playing Quidditch and the whole show being “A fabulously funny parody [which] will tickle the funny bone of every age group” (as the London Daily Telegraph puts it), it’s very clear if you think about it that Clarkson and Turner have two intentions.
The first is educational for the younger readers. The show makes the acceptance of violence and death so ridiculous that it takes on the quality of that old cartoon “Stop laughing. This is serious”.
For the grown-ups there is the final song “We will survive” with the line “She will survive!”
Played with a Scottish accent, Scott as “Scott” admits he has lied about knowing J.K.Rowling personally. This had made Brendan, as “Brendan” believe that “Scott” was a real expert, but now discovers he tells a lie to make himself seem more important than he really is.
“Scott” admits he doesn’t even know what the J and K stand for. But in the song, it’s all about the threat to Harry, the death of Dumbledore, and when Voldemort attempted to kill Harry, his curse rebounded, seemingly killing Voldemort, and Harry survived with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead [which] made Harry famous among the community of wizards and witches. (Wikipedia)
All written by J.K.Rowling – but who will survive? She, who has made a mint and reputation out of these morally questionable stories, is the only one to survive.
Indeed, since 2016 she has written another seven works after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in a new era of the Wizarding World, put out by global digital Pottermore Publishing.
It’s interesting to note (not mentioned in Potted Potter) that J.K.Rowling also pretends to be “Robert Galbraith” in the Cormoran Strike series of classic contemporary crime fiction – another set of seven.
Perhaps Dan and Jeff might consider another parody?
But I wonder, as probably much the oldest audience member (even older then Dumbledore), how on earth they can keep up the energy for this tour:
04 – 07 Apr Canberra, ACT Theatre Centre
12 – 21 Apr Sydney, NSW Seymour Centre
24 Apr – 05 May Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre
08 – 12 May Adelaide, SA Festival Centre
23 – 26 May Perth, WA State Theatre Centre
I hope they survive, for they actually made me stop thinking for 70 minutes about the dreadful violence and death going on all around us – until I began to see that Mr Netanyahu thinks he is Harry Potter, using his latest wizardry to eliminate his Voldemort with help from the bumbling Dumbledore of the White House Castle.
The skills of these performers, Scott Hoatson and Brendan Murphy, as interpreters of such clever scriptwriting but especially also as improvisers working a full-house audience, gave me a great feeling of relief through spontaneous laughter that everyone needs. Though at some extreme absurdist point in the show, Scott exclaims that ‘theatre is the victim here’, the terrible irony is that, to paraphrase The Beatles, ‘all we need is theatre’ – to bring us to our senses.
Please don’t miss Potted Potter.
