A Muggle’s guide to ‘Potted Potter’

What manner of sorcery is this? It takes nothing less than supreme wizardry to condense 7 novels of the Harry Potter series – a total of more than a million words – as well as more than 700 characters, an assortment of creatures that range from hippogriffs to house elves to dragons, into a live performance just 70 minutes long with just two actors and the cheapest of props to boot. And yet Potted Potter has done it again.  

The Potted Potter parody returned to Manila for the third time and performed from September 30 to October 5 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City. Onstage were James Percy as Harry Potter and Ben Stratton as just about everybody else in the book. 

For Potter fans and wizards alike, the show’s endless gags seem like one inside joke after another. But Muggles not too familiar with the beloved series, the show is riotous fun nonetheless.  

Slapstick comedy and tomfoolery, a musical number, a cosplay event where patrons come in as their favorite characters, a real live Quidditch match involving the entire audience, kids tackling Percy dressed as a Golden Snitch, and water guns – what’s not to love?

Not familiar with the story? Part of the hilarity is that the Potter story constantly being confused with Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and other fantasy fiction. 

The trick to enjoying Potted Potter is not to expect an accurate or even a successful retelling, but rather see the attempt as excuse for laugh-out-loud humor. What matters is the journey, not the destination, when on the road to Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

Growing up potted 

Potted Potter began as just a five-minute street performance in London, 2005 by Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner, two noted theater actors best known as television presenters at Children’s BBC, for fans waiting in line for the release of author JK Rowling’s sixth book that year, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

After enjoying enthusiastic reception from audiences, Percy and Stratton have since expanded and developed Potted Potter to incorporate all the books of the Harry Potter series. 

In 2012 Potted Potter was nominated for Best Entertainment and Family Show by the Laurence Olivier Award of the Society of London Theatre. That same year, Potted Potter began touring internationally, performing to sold out theater venues ever since. Turner and Clarkson have also gone on to create other parodies such as Potted Pirates in 2008, Potted Panto (pantomime) in 2010, and Potted Sherlock that premiered this year. 

Recently in Manila for the premier of the third run of Potted Potter actors James Percy and Benjamin Stratton reveal that each Potted Potter performance is unique owing much to improvisation as well as audience participation. 

“What seems to work very well if lots of the audience cant tell what’s spontaneous and what’s not. So it all melts together. I think an average show is probably about 75 percent scripted. The Quidditch match, that’s different every single day. Because it has limited actors and it’s 70 minutes, its so fast.

Something will go wrong during every show. And you just went and its different and you want the audience to react differently each time so its nice if the audience cant tell what’s scripted and what’s not. Its sort of gives you a nice feeling,” says Stratton.

With audiences, especially children, being so unpredictable, they note that they sometimes say and do the darnest things.  

Percy explains one incident, “There is a moment in the show where we usually find somebody in the audience and ask them if they have a broom with them, most of the time people don’t bring brooms to a theater, so we’re expecting them to say no, that’s what we’re hoping for and then we carry on.” But someone did bring a broom. Percy continues, “So then we’re kinda quite stuck as to what happens next, because we shouldn’t  just invite them to get up and fly.” 

Percy recalls another incident: “Ben is a six foot four [inches] white English guy and there’s a kid in the front row who is about seven and we were halfway through one bit, the boy just took a stand and said, ‘You remind me of Michael Jackson.’” 

At the September 30 show, Percy was surprised at how vigorously Manila audiences tackled him as a Golden Snitch. Both children and their parents found themselves laughing and giggling in their seats, not to mention having fun trying to score points in the Quidditch match. It was a comedy of errors. 

With such audience unpredictability and actor improvisation making each performance unique, it’s no wonder audiences keep coming back for more.  

Coming prepared

Here are a few tips for muggles making the brave foray, waiting for their train at Platform 9¾ sign on London King’s Cross railway station, when Potted Potter comes to town next:

Do come in costume. It’s not a requirement, but you will be rewarded with treats for it, perhaps even a chocolate frog or two.

Don’t bring out those camera phones. Not only is any picture taking and video recording prohibited, it might get a little wet when they bring out the super soakers. 

However, raincoats and umbrellas are completely unnecessary. 

Don’t tackle the Golden Snitch so hard. – Rappler.com

 Writer, graphic designer, and business owner Rome Jorge is passionate about the arts. Formerly the Editor-in-Chief of asianTraveler Magazine, Lifestyle Editor of The Manila Times, and cover story writer for MEGA and Lifestyle Asia Magazines,Rome Jorge has also covered terror attacks, military mutinies, mass demonstrations as well as Reproductive Health, gender equality, climate change, HIV/AIDS and other important issues. He is also the proprietor of Strawberry Jams Music Studio.