We wanted to see a show while in London and, when tickets to
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child became available, we could not pass up
the opportunity to see it (it was only showing in London and New York at the time). The show was a big time commitment and cut into
the meat of the day (and opening hours of the museums), shown in two 2 ½-3 hour
parts—with a 2-hour break in between the shows—and starting at 1pm. With the late opening of museums on Sundays,
that meant we could only fit in one more London museum on our trip. The British Library was at the top of our
list and, as it is up in the King’s Cross neighborhood of London, it also gave
us the opportunity to get in a Harry Potter mood and see some filming sites
of the movies in the area—St. Pancras International Station and St. Pancras
Renaissance Hotel London (shown as the outside of King’s Cross Station in the
movies) and Platform 9 ¾ inside the real King’s Cross Station where there’s a
luggage trolley ‘stuck’ between Platforms 9 and 10 (and now a full-blown
tourist attraction with a managed queue (when in London 😉)
and professional photographer, so we didn’t get too close).
In the British Library we enjoyed seeing Mozart’s musical
diary, handwritten notes by Lewis Carroll and Jane Austen, early printed works
by Shakespeare, the Gutenberg Bible, the Magna Carta, handwritten song lyrics
by members of The Beatles, Leonardo DaVinci’s notebook, letters from Michelangelo…the
remarkable list goes on and on. Before
we had our fill, though, we were back on the tube headed for Palace Theatre to
see Part One of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, stopping near Piccadilly Circus for a fancy
donut for a snack before the show (and
no, although it felt appropriate for the day, we did not have the Bellatwix
Lestrange donut, opting for something a little more simple).
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story
in the Harry Potter series, 19 years after the end of the seventh. I’m usually a die-hard believer in reading
the book before seeing the movie—a rule we mostly followed with our kids with
regards to Harry Potter (Jonathan and I had originally read the books as
they were released), making our kids listen to the audiobooks and/or read the
books before they could see the movies, which worked through about book 5. Anyways, in this instance I would definitely
say to see the play before reading the “book” which is really just the
playscript so it wouldn’t give you any additional insight into the story which I
find the point of reading the book before the movie/play in the first place. The play, as a production, was awesome. It was truly a show filled with magic, drama,
amazing effects, surprises, and a huge cliffhanger between Parts One and
Two. I won’t say more than that because,
you know, #KEEPTHESECRETS and all that, but we enjoyed it and felt it was a
definite highlight of our trip. It also
happened to be the only day that we saw rain, so it was a good day to be
indoors for most of it. And, of our
entire time spent in London, this felt like the only time we were actually amongst
locals instead of tourists. We were
surrounded by British families (for once) who had probably given themselves the
gift for Christmas of finally catching the show.
Between the two shows, we had reservation at Dishoom, an amazing Indian restaurant,
in Covent Garden, taking in the Christmas lights in the Seven Dials
neighborhood on the way there. We
ordered a variety of dishes from the menu to share and we all voted our dinner
at Dishoom one of our favorites (if not THE favorite) of our trip.
After Dishoom we headed back to the theatre for a very exciting
Part Two of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, glad that we had seen
both shows in the same day (some purchase options are to see Part Two several
nights after seeing One).
No "professional" cameras were allowed inside the theatre, so I left my DSLR back at the hotel all day and all we have are iPhone pics.
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