Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the hit West End show based on JK Rowling’s wizarding world, is being shortened to a single production after a decade as two separate plays.
Set 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Cursed Child was originally conceived as a theatrical double bill where parts one and two could be seen consecutively over a single day or two evenings.
But on Wednesday (28 January), producers announced that the play would later this year follow in the footsteps of the Broadway show and become a single two-act production clocking in at 175 minutes with an interval.
In a joint statement, producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender said that this would make the production “more accessible than ever before”.
“Now running at under three hours, the reimagined production retains its scale, illusions and theatrical magic, and emotional depth, while allowing more audiences to experience the story in a single visit,” they said. The final two-part performance will take place on 20 September.
Written by Jack Thorne in collaboration with Rowling and director John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was sold as the “eighth story” in the wizarding franchise.
The show opened in July 2016 to positive reviews and was praised for the technical skills used to create the “magic” on stage. These tricks were kept under wraps, in part, by audience members being asked to “keep the secrets” and not reveal what happens in the production.
But the two-part production has made The Cursed Child an investment for audiences in terms of both time and cost. Parts one and two run for two hours and 40 minutes and two hours and 25 minutes respectively and required purchasing an individual ticket, which ranged from £15 to £95 for each performance.
From 6 October, the play will instead be imagined as a one-part production as currently seen on Broadway and in Japan, Germany and the Netherlands.
The Cursed Child first opened on Broadway in 2018, with the original West End cast members, including Jamie Parker as Harry and Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger, transferring with the two-part production. It was re-staged as a single three-and-a-half hour show on Broadway in November 2021.
The news comes as the debate around rising ticket prices continues to rage both in the West End and wider cultural scene, with the most expensive theatre tickets rising five per cent in 2025 as reported by The Stage. Ticket prices for the new London production of The Cursed Child are yet to be announced.
