The first 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' reviews will get your wands tingling

LONDON -- Somehow, after many, many months of waiting, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is suddenly only a few days away.

The play opens to the public on the 31 July, the script is released across the world on the same day, and -- as of Tuesday morning -- the first reviews have been published.

The verdict? Pretty darn magical, from the sounds of it.

Michael Billington, The Guardian.

"Occasionally, as fans gasped at new pieces of information, I felt like a teetotaller at a convention of licensed victuallers. But, while it helps to be a paid-up Potterhead, Tiffany and his team stage the piece with such dazzling assurance that I finally began to see the point of being wild about Harry."

Jack Shepherd, The Independent.

"Well, Harry Potter fans, you will be glad to know that JK Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany have created a theatre production of immense wonder, one that is highly referential to Harry Potter stories past and is, above all, truly magical.As with Rowling’s other work, this tale - which really is tailor made for the theatre - focusses on familiar themes of friendship and family, developing both new and old characters in a meaningful and believable way." 

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph.

"I’ll admit it: I went into the Palace Theatre a sceptic – doubting that self-confessed “Potter-head” playwright Jack Thorne (working alongside Rowling) would have the magic touch to bring the story back to life, and pretty much convinced that whatever tricks director John Tiffany and illusionist Jamie Harrison had up their sleeves, it would be no match for the films’ amazing CGI effects.

Well, those involved can give themselves a pat on the back. It’s a triumph. Not an unqualified one – there are some quibbles – but in all key respects, it grips, it stirs, it delights."

Kasia Delgado, The Radio Times.

"The stagecraft is mind-bogglingly clever and creative and the audience gasped and clapped as characters vanished through Platform 9 3/4, sweets made ears smoke, props were whooshed away under cloaks and broomsticks levitated above the ground. The most vivid elements of Rowling's novels – the Hogwarts Express, the Great Hall, the Sorting Hat -- lose none of their magic when re-created on stage because every single detail has clearly been laboriously obsessed over."

Ben Brantley, The New York Times.

"This eagerly anticipated, two-part, five-hour-plus sequel to J. K. Rowling’s best-selling, seven-volume series of “Harry Potter” novels is the kind of play that you want to describe in detail, if only to help you figure out how it achieves what is does. That would be a kind of magic that is purely theatrical yet somehow channels the addictive narrative grip of Ms. Rowling’s prose."

James Hibberd, Entertainment Weekly.

"Author J.K. Rowling, working with London theatre veterans Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, have delivered a production that’s as spectacular as it is ambitious, stuffed with special effects and twists that had a preview audience gasping, Cursed Child is a story that doesn’t play it safe with the Potter canon and will change how fans see certain favorite characters forever."

Can it be Sunday already?

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