#hpplayldn

The first thing I wrote about Dominic as Albus when the Potters walked onstage at Platform 9 ¾ was ‘so SMOL’. He really is very short and even compared to Jamie as Harry he is quite little. The second thing I noticed was that he was so happy at the beginning and so excited about going off to Hogwarts. He was looking around in wonder at the station, all this anticipation building up to the moment he’d been waiting for for so long.

Ryan Mackay was a great James in this part - he was totally confident and at ease, and he and Dom really do look a lot like siblings on stage. He was chatting away to Lily and basically looking around like he owned the place (which let’s be honest, he does). When they were leaving the stage he jumped and did a little skip offstage which was adorable.

Michelle and Rayxia as Hermione and Rose were lovely in this scene too although they have barely any lines. They stood close and talked together, it looked like they were making inside jokes and laughing. They gave the impression of a really close mother/daughter relationship and that they were friends too, which I really enjoyed.

Dom’s Albus turned very thoughtful and nervous when he started to think about being sorted into Slytherin, but he responded really well to Harry’s reassurance - their relationship is clearly pretty solid at this point and Albus was soon back to his happy but nervous self. As he went to leave, he hesitated and then gave his parents a big grin, sort of shrugging and wiggling his hands over the trolley handle on his 'Okay then’, before pushing it offstage. He was so innocently hopeful; at this point he seems quite confident that Hogwarts will be a bit scary but he’ll have a great time.

On the Hogwarts Express, my first glimpse of Jon as Scorpius was him making small talk with the Trolley Witch - I don’t know if I’ve seen a Scorpius do this before but it was so sweet! He looked as though he was making such an effort to be polite and pay attention to her.

The introduction between Albus and Scorpius was surprisingly chilled - sometimes I’ve seen them both flailing completely when they are messing up their names but although Dom and Jon obviously had these same lines, there was a kind of ease between them which showed how immediately comfortable they were around each other. There was no judgement at all and neither of them seemed to feel like they needed to be apologetic or self-conscious to the other.

When we got to Rose’s line about the rumour Scorpius is the son of Voldemort, Albus’s reaction was gold - Dom did the biggest 😱 face, he was truly appalled that anyone could ever believe something so outlandish or be so mean as to spread that rumour. When Rose began to leave, his 'no’ to her was immediate and Scorpius looked so surprised that Albus wanted to stay with him; he genuinely wasn’t expecting that Albus would want to be his friend.

In the Hogwarts montage scenes, Dom really shone. He went through so many stages of Albus growing up and losing his happy innocence from the initial scenes. At the beginning when the other kids compared him to Harry, he was so excited - proud of his dad and flattered to be recognised. By second and third year he was starting to get sad, and the other kids were breaking his spirit. He was still trying hard to fit in but he was starting to realise that it was never going to happen. When Harry handed him the Hogsmeade permission form, Albus said the ‘it’ll be full of Hogwarts students’ line to his own hand holding the form which I loved - at this point he was still trying to keep his negativity to himself and didn’t want to be too openly angry with his dad. When the incendio charm actually worked he looked positively gleeful, he’s still enthused about magic and thrilled any time he feels like he’s accomplished something.

Jon’s Scorpius was relentlessly positive in these scenes and even when he revealed that Astoria has died, he still gave a few nervous laughs and was trying his best not to make Albus upset. His voice wavered on 'be my good friend’ like he was allowing himself one moment of weakness even though he was trying hard not to make a scene.

Michelle and Jamie were great in the Harry’s office scene. I’d seen Jamie before and he repeated his little grin and 'ah’ when Hermione calls him out on his paperwork. Michelle laughed at Jamie doing his theatrical bow to her after her ‘gentle nudge from the Minister for Magic’ line, and the whole scene had a vibe of them being very casual and happy around each other. Their friendship and years and years of knowing each other as best friends was really evident.

Next up, Madeleine arrived as Delphi and my first impression was great - she was very awkward and geeky with no traces of suspicion at the beginning here. After her 'I’m a thief’ line she did a quick 'What?’ under her breath to herself which was really endearing. Albus was a bit uncertain of her at first but quite quickly started to listen with concern - he took what she was saying very seriously.

Time for the blanket scene! The change in Dom’s Albus from the start of the play to here was already so apparent - he’s gone through his excitement and then disillusionment, and he’s moved past sadness to anger. He was so done. From the very beginning of the scene he was barely listening to Harry - he could see right through what he perceives as this half-hearted attempt at appeasement. He got increasingly impatient, initially trying to be polite and then starting to lose his cool. It’s the same lines as every time I’ve seen the show but this time around it felt as though Harry and Albus were almost having two separate conversations rather than an argument with each other. They were both using this exchange for something different and neither of them was listening to the other. It felt as though Albus had been waiting for this opportunity and that whatever Harry had said or whatever gift he’d brought, their conversation would still have gone the same. By the time we got to the 'sometimes I wish you weren’t my son’ line, Albus was giving as good as he got - he was shouting and standing way back from Harry and hardly looking at him. He was arguing with himself as much as he was arguing with Harry, and when Jamie said the line, Dom’s reaction was actually quite muted. He expected it. He almost seemed pleased that Harry had actually said what he’d been feeling out loud, because Albus wanted that to happen, he wanted to have his anger validated. Jamie on the other hand was horrified, he’d barely finished the line before he’d reached forward and his voice was breaking on the 'No! I didn’t mean that’ line. Jamie and Dom both did a fantastic job on this scene. It felt equal - it wasn’t one of them picking on the other, they were both provoking each other and they both needed to have this all out in the open.

Now a moment to appreciate Ginny Weasley and more specifically, Susie Trayling. I’d seen Susie before back in March but I really fell in love with her performance this time around. In her conversations with Harry she was so restrained and measured, quiet but still commanding attention and respect. She captures Ginny’s emotional intelligence (something all the Weasleys have in spades) so well and she had the perfect balance of helping Harry understand what he needed to change without reprimanding or nagging him.

Rayxia was fab as Rose at the fourth year Hogwarts Express scene - she was really genuinely sad about not being friends with Albus and very earnest in her offer that she was there if he needed to talk. It really echoed how Michelle’s Hermione was with Harry and how close their friendship was, and showed what could have been between Rose and Albus if things had turned out differently.

The first Albus/Scorpius hug on the train was quite brief - Scorpius looked very surprised but pleasantly so, and then once they’d pulled apart they took it turns to rest their hands on each other’s shoulders over the next couple of lines. As Albus was explaining his jumping-off-the-train plan, Scorpius was listening very intently to him but still gave the impression he was just humouring Albus. He clearly thinks Albus is adorable but he doesn’t believe him for a second that they’re getting off the train until they are actually on the roof, at which point my god, he went mad! He was flailing madly for the whole trolley witch scene and moving so fast he looked like a jellyfish being electrocuted, and it was brilliant. Quick shout-out also to Blythe Duff for doing a great job as the Trolley Witch here. I LOVE the Trolley Witch and as the boys jumped off the train and the set was dismantled and she was pulled offstage she continued to do these really loud ‘Noooooooooooo!’ screams (I think three or four times) and it was fantastic. So melodramatic and also really leaning into the idea that she has just had her 190-year-old perfect record for delivering students to Hogwarts ruined. Not enough people appreciate the real pain and suffering behind the Trolley Witch’s backstory so props to Blythe for doing her justice here 😉

A quick note from the first Ministry of Magic scene - I’ve seen Tom Aldridge as Ron three times now and he’s so flawless in the role, but he did something I’d not picked up on before. When Hermione introduces herself as Minister for Magic, Ron stuck his hand up as if he was saying ‘yes, she’s mine!’. He looked SO proud to be her husband and I love how supportive he is of Hermione, and how openly in love he is with her.

The new St Oswald’s scene - I know this one has divided people but to be honest I didn’t know the old one well enough to pick up on all the changes. The effects were brilliant, lots of objects flying around and a few other tricks that looked great on stage. Gordon Millar was the caretaker in this scene and he was fantastic, really taunting the old witches and wizards and then full-on screaming and getting a taste of his own medicine when they turned on him. I enjoyed having that role fleshed out a bit more but the second half of the scene felt a bit emptier; most of the tricks were at the beginning and that left a bit of filler space. If I’d been seeing it for the first time I doubt it would have bothered me though!

Also in St Oswald’s, when Scorpius and Albus were talking to Amos and he said ‘You’ve brought a Malfoy’, Scorpius was so flattered to be recognised, and then so crestfallen when he continued with ‘who might be a Voldemort’. He really is surprised any time someone shows him attention or gives him praise which broke my heart a little bit, because he clearly doesn’t think he deserves it. As he was listening to Amos talk about Cedric, Jon was doing the same intense focus and being very genuinely sympathetic. You could see he truly cares about other peoples’ pain; even when he is stressed and under pressure he makes the time to listen to others and really empathises.

The ‘grown-ups’ all gave solid performances in their Act One scenes here too. Tom absolutely nails it as Albus/Ron in the polyjuice scene and his comedic timing with the ‘I want a baby’ line got a huge laugh. He knows exactly how to work the crowd and even knowing all the jokes, I still find him hilarious. In McGonagall’s office after Ron comes in from the kitchens, he leaves his napkin tucked into his jumper until Minerva took it off him as they all exited. I’m not sure if this is new but it gave the end of the scene an extra little flourish I enjoyed.

In the forest scene, Madeleine’s Delphi again did a great job of seeming very genuine. She acted quite young and it was easy to see how the boys would trust her, Albus especially. When they told her she should stay behind she visibly deflated and was apparently really concerned for their wellbeing. Dom’s Albus was very excited about getting the expelliarmus spells right and he played this pretty similar to his excitement at the incendio charm earlier or when he got positive comments from the kids at school. He’s a kid who is just desperate for approval, wherever it comes from. It didn’t feel like he was singling Delphi out specifically and wanting to impress her - he wants to impress anyone who will pay him attention.

Right at the beginning of the edge of the forest, Dom did a great little reaction - as Scorpius says ‘still get a tingle, don’t you?’, Albus looked over at him and pulled a ‘what on earth are you on about’ face behind his back. It was very good-natured; he is clearly bemused but still really fond of his weird gangly friend. I loved seeing the little teasing moments like that between the two of them. After he caught up to Scorpius and Jon was onto talking about wanting to come to Hogwarts and wanting a mate to get up to mayhem with, Albus looked so happy again, then turned sullen immediately once he mentioned Harry. Dom’s Albus flipped between emotions so rapidly the whole way through the play and this was a prime example. As soon as Scorpius continued and said Albus was his best friend, he was back to being smiley and flattered. Dom is really expressive with his face and his Albus doesn’t hide his feelings at all, which I loved. When Scorpius was talking about being scared, they got very close to one another and had their hands hovering between them, a little awkwardly, but they are clearly comfortable being near and reassuring each other.

In this first Triwizard scene, Ronnie Lee (Craig) and Luke Sumner (Yann) were noticeably chanting for both Krum and Cedric as they were announced. Sadly I couldn’t make out the words but they had obviously rehearsed and had different lyrics for each contestant, which I loved because god knows I live for Slytherins being extra and dramatic.

Once they were back from the past in the first AU and Albus’s arm was injured, Dom put on a really cheery expression as Harry came onstage, and his ‘Hello Dad!’ was very obviously fake. His Albus is a pretty terrible liar and doesn’t do well at hiding his real emotions even though he tries with this veneer of casual confidence. In the dormitory scene we got a very similar vibe to the blanket argument. Although he seemed a little more receptive to Harry at the beginning, he quickly tuned out and stopped listening closely to his dad. As soon as Harry started to talk about his own time at Hogwarts, you could see Albus switch right off and withdraw into himself - this is clearly a really touchy subject for him and something that immediately makes him angry about his own experiences at school. He stayed that way until it became clear that Harry was serious about separating him from Scorpius, at which point his voice started to wobble and he sounded like he was about to cry on ‘Dad, you can’t’.

A little Jamie note - when Albus and Ron were on the stairs and Albus mentioned Hermione, Jamie recoiled behind him, grimaced and then mouthed ‘sorry’ up at Ron behind Dom’s back. I’d never noticed this before but it was such a nice touch. Jamie is really great at those little quiet moments which say so much about a friendship.

More Susie excellence here too! Her Ginny’s reaction to Harry separating the boys was very quiet but full of silent fury. You could see she was seething under the surface but she remained steely and I got the impression that she was allowing Harry to make his own mistakes and realise them himself, rather than deciding to nag him or try to openly defy him since that would likely turn him defensive. All the love for Ginny Weasley!

Time for Staircase Ballet, and I’m not going to lie, my handwriting was so barely decipherable after this that it took me several minutes to figure out what the notes said. I feel a little bad for not watching Dom as much as I should have, but Jon absolutely shone in this scene. He spent the whole time searching, his face pleading, for Albus, and completely open and ready for whenever (if ever) Albus wanted to speak to him. He leaned forward to Al whenever they were on stage together and when they met at the top of the stairs he was shuffling closer, all nervous and hopeful. His Scorpius is unfailingly optimistic and here he was clearly sticking to his belief that this separation wouldn’t go on forever and at any moment, Albus would relent and start talking to him - which made it even more heartbreaking when Albus turned away. Even until the very end, he seemed disbelieving and was holding out hope that at the last minute Albus would change his mind. Dom’s Albus, on the other hand, felt very angry during this scene - but all that anger was directed at himself. He could barely even look at Scorpius and was quite still, full of nervous tension and not letting himself be tempted by Scorpius’s leaning in and clearly offering to talk. He seemed to be hating himself for playing along with Harry’s rules, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to break them.

When it came to the Scorpius and Delphi scene on the staircases, Madeleine was really interesting. She seemed to almost be mimicking Scorpius; she was very awkward and nervy, fumbling over her sentences and acting quite apologetic in the same way that Jon does. It worked well as a way for her to seem less intimidating to Scorpius himself (and obviously would appeal to Albus in her interactions with him). When she said the ‘something’s got to be done about the two of you’ and ‘you belong together’ lines, Jon reacted very sweetly: he gestured and nodded his head as if to say ‘oh I’m glad you’ve said that, because I think we do too’.

Now I know that people have been raving about Jon for a year now but I’m going to hop on the bandwagon given that he was new to me. His library scene was something else. This is a fab scene and it’s a great chance for any actor in the Scorpius role (i.e. it’s kind of difficult to do it badly) but Jon really was phenomenal here. As soon as he came in and sat down, something about him was different - he was at breaking point already and his usual happy silly personality was failing. He had one chance to sort things out with Albus and he was determined to seize it. He was full of tension and very close to tipping over the edge into panic mode when he was walking Albus through the explanation of what caused the changes in time.

When they started to argue, he was already crying and getting frustrated with himself, and then the audience reaction to Albus’s ‘I wasn’t a loser before I met you’ line was quite dramatic - lots of gasps, almost at ‘wish you weren’t my son’ level - but Scorpius’s reaction here was painfully resigned. He let out a kind of bitter ‘Ahhh, there we go’ noise as if he’d just been waiting for the point when Albus would admit that he didn’t want him anymore. He showed a break in his usual optimism and let all those insecurities come to the surface for a moment. When he got into the full flow of his monologue he was trying so hard to say his piece and getting increasingly annoyed at his crying and his inability to speak calmly. He’d pause in the middle of sentences to wipe his tears and groan at himself, then keep going. All throughout this Dom’s Albus was standing almost totally still, really appalled at how much Scorpius was hurting but also quite clearly not wanting to interrupt him. He seemed to know that it was important for Scorpius to get all this out and although he understood that he was at fault, he wasn’t taking Scorpius’s anger too personally - his reaction wasn’t defensive or bitter in the same way he reacted to Harry shouting at him. By the time Scorpius got to talking about thinking that maybe Astoria was still alive in this AU, he was almost worn out. The fight had gone out of him a little bit and his rant had sort of served its purpose; he wasn’t really that angry at Albus, he was angry at the whole world and its injustices and he just needed to release all of that emotion. Dom’s Albus seemed to understand that.

Once they’d been interrupted by McGonagall and the invisibility cloak part of the scene, Jon had really mellowed and although he moved his chair to face away from Albus, his expression was much softer and he smiled as soon as Dom started talking. Albus went in with the joke about James being easy to steal from and mimed a little vomit action at the broom combination line, but quite quickly he checked himself and turned more serious - he was starting to realise that always deflecting from difficult conversations wasn’t helping him. Once it was clear that Albus was taking things seriously and making an effort to apologise, Scorpius turned right around and was just as attentive as ever, all of his anger and frustration a million miles away already. He still got a little exasperated at himself for crying after Albus told him he was kind, but he was just so happy to have his friend back that nothing else mattered much in that moment. When Albus asked ‘friends?’ and held out his hand, Scorpius held onto it and spoke very clearly and certainly (which isn’t usual for him) as he said ‘Always’. The hug was adorably awkward - Dom pulled Jon up very fast and grabbed him around his middle, and Jon ended up with his arms stuck out straight over Dom’s shoulders, folding his hands back to sort of poke him in the back with his fingers for the ‘that’s the second time you’ve done that’ line.

As soon as Albus started talking about his plan for the second task, he switched into excited Albus mode and was all bouncy and enthusiastic; and when he mentioned the ‘sparkly surprise’ he mimed fireworks with his hands and did an adorable ‘pew pew pew’ noise. He dived down to pick up his bag and the cloak from the floor by Scorpius’s feet and Jon instinctively reached forward and put his hands on Dom’s back - almost as if he was going for another hug, or he was ready to catch Albus if he fell. There were a few moments like this with more casual contact between them and it added a really lovely feeling of familiarity and friendship.

In the bathroom scene with Myrtle, Jon reached over to Dom again when Myrtle was swinging around and almost kicked him, trying to protect him. He was always on the lookout for any danger and trying to keep Albus safe. He also did the funniest gesture on a couple of lines here; it came across as being nervous and feeling exposed in his vest and shorts and bare feet - on the ‘engorgimpressed’ line and when he repeated Myrtle’s name after she gets mad, he stuck one leg forward and pointed his toe as if he was doing a ballet pose. It was so sweet and nervy, like he was putting on a little performance, and it fit perfectly with his sing-song voice and his tendency to flourish his hands on a lot of his lines as though he’s presenting them to an audience. I think it’s Scorpius’s way of acknowledging his awkwardness and trying to almost apologise for it, so that people don’t make fun of him.

Lucy Mangan did a solid job as Myrtle - she wasn’t as high-pitched and whiny as I’ve seen the character played before, but she had a few really funny moments. When she was crying and Albus tried to interrupt, she spun around to look at him and did a ‘talk to the hand’ gesture, then went back for another wail with the taps on full blast. Her ‘I love secrets’ line was SO loud and over-dramatic too and that got a big laugh from the audience. Once the boys were on top of the sink and she’d stuck her leg out in front of Scorpius, she said her ‘I do like brave boys’ line in a very exaggerated playful tone, and then Jon mimicked her when he said ‘Then I’m entirely ready’. He was unusually confident on that line, doing a little jig with his arms and matching her playfulness, like he’d had a sudden burst of courage and wasn’t feeling threatened by her at all.

That’s about all for Part One, except to say that the dementors at the very end are still one of my favourite parts of the whole show. The first time I saw it in 2016 it completely blew my mind and every time since I’ve thought I was ready and I was NOT. This time around I was still so shaken and I really just want to shout out the sound engineering/design here because I don’t quite know how they manage it, but the combination of the volume and the intensity of the music and dementor sound effects just creates such a tense and overwhelming environment that it always leaves me basically hyperventilating. I’ve never encountered anything like it!

Onto Part Two and of course we start with poor Scorpius in the dark AU. Jon’s Scorpius is so soft that I wasn’t sure how he would hold up here but as soon as he came onstage he was very different - much stiller and restraining all of his normal fidgety mannerisms, although he did still let out a nervous laugh here and there while talking to Umbridge. Kathryn Meisle was fantastic as Umbridge here, getting the balance of sickly sweetness and a real evil edge just right. Scorpius was visibly restraining himself, hunching over and leaving pauses before he spoke because he was so nervous about saying the wrong thing and getting into trouble.

The scene between Jon and James in Draco’s office was heartbreaking. This was my third time seeing James Howard as Draco so I knew more or less what to expect from him, but I thought he worked especially well with Jon as Scorpius. He’s very stoic, with just a hint of nerves and emotion under his Malfoy veneer. Jon’s Scorpius was again quite optimistic in this scene - he obviously goes into the office expecting to find the same Draco as he has at home, and his approach is quite casual and calm, which suggests how close they must be in their real world. Throughout his lines asking if the attacks on muggles were orchestrated by Draco, you could tell that he didn’t believe what he was suggesting at all; he couldn’t possibly believe that his dad would do something so awful. However he finally reached breaking point and then all of a sudden this anger and pain burst out of nowhere and he completely blew up at Draco. It was similar to his behaviour in the library scene with Albus - staying positive, hiding his stress, and restraining himself until he can’t possibly contain himself any longer and then absolutely losing it. It was desperately sad to watch because Jon’s Scorpius is so soft and quiet that you know when he gets angry he really means it. Once they started talking about Astoria though, he calmed quite quickly, and Draco softened a lot on his final lines telling Scorpius to be safe. It seemed as though Scorpius had just about forgotten that things were all wrong until the final ‘For Voldemort and valour’ - once Draco made the gesture to him, Scorpius let out this awful bitter almost-laugh, his realisation that what he thought was a breakthrough to the ‘real’ Draco wasn’t real, and he’s still no closer to escaping this awful world. It felt like he was losing hope and that was so difficult to watch.

Quick shout-out to our new Craig Bowker Jr, Ronnie Lee! He did a great job at making a small part memorable - his movement was fantastic on the transition scenes and as soon as he started speaking, I nearly had a fit because his Craig has a northern accent! I couldn’t place it exactly because he has so few lines but as a northerner myself I was chuffed to hear someone with a bit of regional accent onstage, given that aside from Hagrid and the Scots (McGonagall/Station Master), everyone else in the show usually has very RP accents. Anyway, apart from the accent, Ronnie seemed very good-natured and an amicable Craig, which is what makes his death even sadder later on.

This was also my third time seeing David Annen as Severus Snape and his portrayal is still spot-on - his voice is remarkably similar to Alan Rickman’s from the movies and it’s so easy to see him as the character straight off the bat. He has a great skill for deadpan humour and some of his lines got massive laughs from the audience (‘I exist to serve’ being my personal favourite). Jon in this scene was very respectful, and you could really see how much Scorpius revered and admired Snape. That said, when Snape revealed that Cedric had killed Neville (which got a big ‘awww’ from the audience, rather than the shocked gasps I’ve heard before), Scorpius seemed just the tiniest bit disappointed that he hadn’t been able to solve the puzzle himself - his ‘you’ve solved it’ line was relieved and happy but a little bit regretful too.

For some reason I didn’t write any notes for the rest of the dark AU scenes, but I remember enjoying Michelle’s openness with Ron in the part where she reveals she’s always loved him and then decides they should both stay there to hold the dementors off for longer. She’s definitely the most emotionally available Hermione I’ve seen, if that makes sense - she wasn’t closing herself off or hiding her feelings to put on a stoic front.

Next up is my absolute favourite scene of the whole play(s) - when Scorpius comes up from the lake after the dark AU and Albus reappears alongside him. Sometimes the Albuses seem to take forever to pop back up out of the water, but Dom appeared pretty soon after Jon here, and for what felt like quite a long time, Scorpius just stared in silence at Albus as he chattered away about the task, as though he was trying to take in every detail of Albus’s face because he’d missed him so much. Then, when he started to scream, my god did he scream! He let out this long, high-pitched screech and really hurled himself at Albus for the hug. It didn’t last long, but they pulled apart naturally (Albus didn’t push Scorpius back like I’ve seen in the past), and then they stayed close as Albus kind of gently pulled at the lapels of Scorpius’s coat as he asked ‘what are you wearing?’.

Once Scorpius jumped out of the lake, he did the funniest pose on the ‘it’s AMAZING’ line, throwing his fists up in the air and holding a kind of cheering stance for a second or two as he yelled. As Harry came onstage he let out another high-pitched scream and absolutely belted ‘IT’S HARRY POTTER’, and at this point the audience were all laughing so much that he then got a full round of applause - which he totally deserved but which unfortunately drowned out the Ginny/McGonagall lines and only just died down in time for ‘Hi dad!’ which he did in a very sing-song voice. James Howard then did something I’d not seen him do before and mimicked the singing with a very high-pitched ‘Hello Scorpius’. It was an adorable interaction and really made me smile.

James continued the Draco highlights into the McGonagall’s office scene - when she said her line about choosing the punishment for Albus and Scorpius, Draco responded with ‘Seems fair’ but as he spoke, stuck his hand up in the air as if he was answering a lesson in class, then gave the smuggest look to Harry and Ginny. For a split second he was exactly like eleven-year-old Draco being the teacher’s pet to Snape and acting like a swot to impress all his classmates, and it was hilarious.

There were a couple of really sweet Rose moments in this scene too. First was when she and the other kids were listening on the stairs outside the office, and Ryan as James comforted her after she started to seem upset at the realisation that there was an alternate world where she didn’t exist. James put his hands on Rose’s shoulders really gently and you could see her react gratefully. Once they were all moving away from the office and she encountered Hermione in the hall, she initially turned away - but it seemed to be more out of uncertainty and unwillingness to show her emotions than because she was angry. Michelle’s Hermione was quite clearly distressed here and looked on the verge of tears as soon as she saw Rose. Their hug was very close and heartfelt, and you could see how much they meant to each other.

The Slytherin dormitory scene between Harry and Albus is one of my favourites because I think it comes at such an interesting point in their relationship, and I thought Jamie and Dom worked brilliantly together here. Dom’s Albus was starting to make small steps towards understanding his own emotions, and he was less angry here than he had been in earlier conversations with Harry. He was holding himself back from saying anything too rash, and it felt as though he was realising he wasn’t just angry at Harry, there was more going on than just what was happening between the two of them. He really softened as soon as Ginny was mentioned and it seemed as though he was realising that it was important he and Harry needed to figure things out - for her as well as for themselves.

The second Slytherin dorm scene was also fantastic with Jon and Dom bouncing off each other really well. They were both pretty casual and quite quiet with each other - really showing how comfortable the characters are around each other by this point. When Jon said his ‘Scorpius the Dreadless’ line, he did this silly marching motion with his arms, sticking his chest out and pretending to be all confident, which Dom then mimicked in a very cute way on ‘I’m not sure being fearless is going to be good for your health.’ It was little touches like these that gave them a very genuine best-friends vibe. Dom’s Albus seemed very genuinely happy for Scorpius that he was feeling so confident, and he was enjoying the silly teasing about Polly and Rose. Once they started talking about their attempts to save Cedric though, Albus got really down on himself very quickly, beating himself up for making such ‘stupid’ decisions, and Scorpius turned very earnest in trying to stop him from thinking that way. Telling Albus that he’d thought of him to cast his patronus worked wonders and Albus absolutely lit up at that line - looked so flattered and happy and incredulous. Then came the time turner reveal, and I have never seen someone so perfectly embody the 😱 emoji as Dom at this bit. He was so shocked and disbelieving, like he had never considered for a second that Scorpius would be able to hide that from him; but also quite excited and proud of his friend for doing something rebellious and cool.

I really enjoyed the Owlery scene this time around too. Jon’s Scorpius was very fidgety again, getting up and down, twisting around, flailing his hands, and getting noticeably closer to Albus bit by bit, until they were shoulder-to-shoulder just as Delphi arrived. Madeleine was fantastic again here and had some great expressions. When she said that Euphemia Rowle had only taken her in for the gold, she stuck her bottom lip out and pulled a very over-the-top baby sad face at Albus, keeping her geeky charade up right until the last minute. Then she flipped and revealed herself to be the Augurey - and all of her act was dropped immediately. She was loving finally being able to show these boys what she was made of.

In the Ministry office scene we had another really lovely Ron and Hermione moment: on the ‘I will skewer you with this quill’ line, they had a little joust with their quills, poking each other and laughing. And when Ron explained that he wanted to renew their vows and got down on one knee, Michelle’s Hermione allowed herself a little moment of giddiness, and turned all soft at his flirting. I loved it - I think sometimes it can feel like Hermione only puts up with Ron and doesn’t quite reciprocate his feelings, but there was no hint of that with these two. Hermione was really affectionate throughout the play and especially in these little moments, and Michelle’s version felt like a Hermione who had grown over the years and become more comfortable with her emotions and better at expressing them, as well as still being very much in love with Ron.

By this point in the show I knew that the torture scenes with Delphi and the boys were going to be painful to watch because Jon’s Scorpius is so soft and innocent, and I wasn’t wrong. Madeleine’s Delphi is horribly sadistic and was gleeful here, whereas Scorpius was very hunched over, all his body language pleading not to be hurt. Albus’s expression was one of unadulterated hatred - Dom’s version of Albus usually has his emotions written plain on his face and that was especially the case here. He was seething, absolutely loathing Delphi for what she was doing. He was full of nervous energy too and once she let loose with the crucio on Scorpius he ran to her straight away, determined to fight. Once it had become clear that Delphi was in control though, and wouldn’t hesitate to torture Scorpius again, he changed - becoming much stiller, much more desperate. He watched what was happening in anguish but clearly knew that trying to protest again would aggravate her more. He was looking back and forth between them, trying to find any opportunity to intervene, and increasingly distressed that there was nothing he could do.

The scene in Harry’s office between Harry and Dumbledore really got me this time. I’ve never cried at this bit before and to be honest when I saw Jamie Ballard for the first time back in March this year I didn’t fall in love with his interpretation of the character, but I did a complete 180 after this scene, he was so brilliant. He was quite softly-spoken for a while with Dumbledore, and then really let rip when he started talking about the Dursleys and how he thought that nobody cared about him. It was really clear how much adult Harry still has to manage all that trauma and how it’s never really left him - and how much of an impact it has on his interactions with his family now. He reined himself in again quite quickly after his outburst and that was even more heart-breaking to see; he so rarely lets himself feel all of that pain and injustice even though under the surface he is (rightfully) angry at everything he had to go through. His voice broke when he told Dumbledore he loved him and he was still very teary when Draco appeared in his office.

I love James Howard’s Draco and this is one of his strongest scenes too. He gets the balance of old Draco and new, adult Draco just right. The little touches of humour with his awkward small talk and useless dad jokes remind you of how much of a little shit he was as a child, but then he moves seamlessly into the more serious conversations about Scorpius and Astoria. The expression of pain and regret that crossed his face as soon as Harry mentioned Scorpius’s name killed me - his love for his son and his family is so clear and I adore that he doesn’t shy away from those feelings any more; he’s grown so much since his school days.

Now we come to the Godric’s Hollow scenes and I loved the interactions between Jon and Dom here. We got a return to happy Albus when Scorpius told him about the statue of the Potters that would be put up after their deaths - he lit up and it was like that very first time at Hogwarts in Act One when one of the kids told him he looked like Harry and he was just so proud to be a Potter. I loved that those feelings hadn’t been completed stamped out of him and he hadn’t turned too cynical by this point; it was a promising sign for how his relationship with his dad could still be repaired. When the two boys were trying to come up with a plan Dom was pulling a very intense concentrating face and gesturing a lot with his hands; it’s as though he’s thinking out loud but using gestures instead of words, if that makes sense? Scorpius’s ‘HELP’ lines got a big laugh from the audience although Jon spoke them a bit quieter than some of the Scorpiuses I’ve seen, and he clearly knew as soon as he started speaking that it was a stupid idea - he seemed to be waiting for Albus to interrupt him so that he could stop with his ridiculous monologue.

These two did my favourite version of the ‘return of eternal darkness’ lines I think I’ve ever seen. As Scorpius began the line, he seemed to be psyching himself up, and he paused before ‘I’d choose you’ to take a deep breath, as though it was taking him a lot of courage - like it was an admission he was a bit scared to say out loud - and then Dom’s response was wonderful. In the past I’ve seen Albuses roll their eyes or seem a bit exasperated by this comment from Scorpius, but Dom left a pause for a few seconds and then rather than giving one of his big toothy grins, he gave a much softer smile as he said his ‘no offense, but I’d choose someone massive and good at magic’ line, and he spoke slower and quieter than usual. It didn’t feel like he was making fun of Scorpius, or deflecting or changing the subject; it felt like he was acknowledging all the meaning Scorpius had put into his words and accepting that meaning, and saying ‘I’d choose you too’ without actually speaking the words out loud - because this is still Albus Potter, king of not being able to talk about his feelings. Scorpius seemed pleased with how he responded too, seemed to understand what he was trying to say, and they held eye contact for a second or two and kept smiling. I hadn’t expected it to be such a tender and sweet moment, but I truly loved it and I really hope they keep their version of the scene that way, because it says so much about the development of their friendship. Once they started figuring out their blanket plan, they both got really excited, bounding around the stage and flailing - especially Dom. This kid LOVES a good plan.

Next up, the adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow, and I have to take a second to appreciate James Howard going the extra mile here by doing a full-on dramatic gasp and step forward on his ‘farmer’s market’ line. I’ve never seen him do it so over-the-top before but it’s one of my favourite lines so I’m glad he gets such a big laugh for it!

The Scorpius and Draco reunion was a tale of two halves in this scene. When Draco appeared and stepped forward, Jon’s Scorpius jumped, turned and actually ran two or three paces back in panic before stopping. This actually got a laugh from the audience which really surprised me to be honest, because to me it read as heart-breaking, to see him in so much distress at the sight of his dad. It really got me thinking actually, because although at first I assumed it was a result of his interactions with Draco in the dark AU, I then thought that their dark AU office scene doesn’t seem like enough to cause such a violent reaction from Scorpius, especially since they presumably talked and bonded again once they were back in the right world (as Harry and Albus did in the dormitory scene). So what would make Scorpius react that way? I still don’t really know and it could be simply that he’s stressed at that point in the play and would have panicked regardless, but part of me wonders if this was intended as a hint as some deeper trauma (perhaps from his grandfather Lucius) in childhood that gets triggered in that moment. Regardless, it was an interesting choice on Jon’s part but I’m not sure if it will stick around given that audience reaction - I doubt he intended it to be a funny moment. Anyway, once he had recovered and realised it was just his dad, Scorpius moved back towards Draco and they went in for their hug with plenty of enthusiasm. Once they’d pulled apart, Draco held Scorpius’s face in his hands and looked right into his eyes, talking to him gently and calming him down, in a way that they had clearly done before at other times when Scorpius was stressed and anxious. He did this again a few seconds later while the others were talking and it was so lovely - you could see his love for Scorpius shining out of him and he knew exactly how to be there for his son in that moment. All the good dad points to Draco Malfoy.

Susie’s Ginny stood out for me in the St Jerome’s scene. I adore her speech to Harry in this scene and she played it beautifully - with the same serenity and calmness she’d had in previous scenes, but with a bit of a wavering voice and visible emotion on her lines about Harry playing exploding snap with her at Hogwarts. It was a really touching detail and I got the impression that Ginny was allowing herself a moment or two of letting her feelings come to the surface after staying stoic and practical during all the time that her beloved son had been missing.

My notes were pretty sparse by this point in the show because I was an emotional wreck already, but all the cast were on brilliant form here and there were some wonderful details I picked up. When Harry volunteers to be transfigured into Voldemort, Dom’s reaction was really moving - he stepped forward a few paces and from his expression he seemed to be really seeing Harry for the first time, without any of his judgements and anger about his dad. When he said ‘it’s the only way’ he was so supportive and properly agreeing with his dad, ready to stand up and defend him. He did the same when he asked Draco to trust Harry, stepping forward until he was quite close to Draco and spoke very assuredly, totally confident in his dad’s idea.

As they were waiting for Delphi to arrive and Scorpius was keeping lookout at the church door, there was another sweet moment between him and Draco - Draco kept a hand on Scorpius’s shoulder and a couple of times Jon looked up at James and they chatted for a little while. I couldn’t tell anything of what they were saying but they were smiling and it looked as though Draco was reassuring Scorpius, and making sure he stayed calm.

Madeleine’s Delphi was great in the battle scene and she was completely unhinged, which I love. She let out some fantastically evil cackles and she was making biting gestures at Ron and Harry when they had captured her. Her transformation from her sweet innocent act earlier in the play was very dramatic and she was totally believable as the child of Voldemort - although you still felt a little sorry for her when she started pleading to be killed or have her memory wiped, when she knew she was defeated; her heartbreak seemed very genuine.

The Lily and James scene absolutely destroys me every time I see the show and knowing what’s coming doesn’t make it any easier. Dom’s Albus was wonderful in this part - once it became clear that they were going to have to watch them die, he stood very close to Harry and slowly moved to hold his dad’s hand, full of compassion and support. All he cared about in that moment was being there for Harry and all of their previous arguments and anger was completely forgotten. He wasn’t thinking about himself at all, which is a huge development for Albus, and Dom showed that journey so well. Scorpius and Draco were perfect here too, with James holding Jon so tightly I thought he might squish him, and covering his face so that Scorpius couldn’t see what was happening. Draco is so protective of his son and it makes me so happy.

Once I’d finished crying I just about managed to make some notes during the final two scenes, with the first obviously being Scorpius and Albus on the staircases. Similar to their Godric’s Hollow scene, Jon and Dom gave me my favourite interpretation of this scene that I’ve seen so far. They were so casual and happy around each other, and as Scorpius was going on about Rose and Polly, Albus was nodding and grinning along with him - he seemed to be happy to humour his friend and enjoying that he was so enthusiastic, without really appearing to believe that Scorpius had any chance with either of the girls. Rayxia was very confident as Rose and was holding back her laughter in a good-natured kind of way, with a very similar vibe - messing with Scorpius a little bit but mostly just fond of him and amused that he was keeping up this silly charade of fancying her when she knew nothing was ever going to happen.

Once Rose had left the stage, Scorpius moved closer and closer to Albus at the foot of the stairs, and it was funny seeing them with their (dramatic) height difference switched the other way around. Jon has a very intense gaze in general but it was especially noticeable here as he was looking up at Albus and positively beaming at him. Their hug was quite quick, but they didn’t pull far apart afterwards and when Scorpius said his ‘new version of us’ line, he reached up and really gently rested his hands on Albus’s shoulders for a few seconds, keeping that steady gaze and some very adorable smiles from both of them. It was extremely cute. Even after he’d let go of Dom’s shoulders, they both stayed quite close at the foot of the stairs with their hands kind of awkwardly between them (but not quite touching) for the rest of the scene with their lines about asking Rose and then going to dinner. Sometimes I’ve seen Scorpiuses already halfway offstage at this point so I loved that they stayed right there until the very end, and left each other with lots of smiles. It felt like a more fitting end to their time together in the play than other interpretations of that scene where they’ve seemed like they didn’t care too much about leaving each other. For this pair, something had changed between them - their friendship had become deeper and more open than ever before and their connection was so wonderful.

Jamie and Dom were a brilliant pair in the graveyard scene too and they work so well together as father and son. They were a million miles away from their fraught, angry relationship at the beginning of the show and really captured the journey that these characters have been on. As soon as Albus starting talking about Lily and James, Harry lit up - he was so thrilled and proud that his son was making a real effort to connect with him. And as Harry was talking, Albus was listening very intently; a complete contrast to how he withdrew and ignored him in the earlier scenes. He was still nervous and awkward when he was making jokes (with very similar mannerisms to Harry), but he was showing how much he cares about his dad and being open and honest with him for the first time. When Harry said his line about knowing Albus’s heart ‘is a good one’, Albus was glowing with pride - that specific love and praise meant the absolute world to him. And at the very end after the ‘nice day’ lines, they stood first with their arms around each other’s shoulders, then leaned in close and Harry pulled Albus into a great big hug and Albus wrapped his arms really tightly around his dad as he ruffled his hair. It was perfect - these two are a pair who both display their emotions very openly and it suited them to have such an affectionate moment at the end of their journey (compared to some of the more restrained Albus and Harry pairs in previous casts).

_________

So! That’s all for my notes on individual scenes, but there were a few more bits and pieces I scribbled down between parts and after the show in terms of my initial reactions to this cast.

Even though it was only a few weeks into their run, Cast 4 seem to be working brilliantly together already. Obviously we’ve got a lot of returning cast members but the newbies seem to have slotted into place easily and I feel like this group are only going to go from strength to strength.

As I’ve said before, I feel as though I’m very late to the Jonathan-Case-is-brilliant party, but I was really blown away by him. I thought I knew what to expect from reading other people’s recaps and reviews and I was wrong - his energy on stage is something you can’t quite get across in words. I think that in many ways Scorpius is the easiest character to love in Cursed Child - he has a lot of the best comedic moments, plus a tragic backstory - and it’s natural to come away from the show singing his praises, but in this case it’s wholly deserved. Jon really felt to me like the real Scorpius, with just the right balance of nerves and charisma and Malfoy-ish determination. His mannerisms were often full of anxiety and he almost never stops moving, always flailing his arms, fidgeting with his sleeves, clasping his hands over his heart. I mentioned his gaze earlier too - every time he’s listening to someone speak he fixes them with this look, full of empathy and concern, as though they are the only person in the world and he is giving them 100% of his attention. He’s also relentlessly positive and optimistic; he wants to see the good in every person and every situation until he’s definitively proven wrong. It definitely gave me the impression that his Scorpius is a kid who grew up with Astoria teaching him to be unfailingly kind, but also that her illness and the legacy of the Malfoy family shaped him to be naturally apologetic, and desperate to make everyone happy, often at his own expense. That said, he has a very clear hidden strength that really comes to the fore in Part Two, and Jon did a great job at capturing the evolution of Scorpius’s character and his self-belief across the events of the play. The library scene was the stand-out performance for me and I can’t wait to see him again.

Dom’s Albus is an absolute sweetheart. He was everything I hoped he would be from the little snippets we’d seen of Dominic since his casting was announced, and I feel like he’s captured my favourite parts of previous Albuses and combined them into a fantastically rounded version of the character. He is SO expressive, and everything he was feeling was clear on his face and in his body language throughout the show; I feel as though Dom has stripped Albus’s motivations and feelings back to their most simple form - I mean that in a really positive way. He’s gotten right to the heart of his character, which is that he is a kid who just wants to be seen and to be loved. Everything he does and every interaction with his friends and family is shaped by that desire and it makes for a very innocent and charming portrayal. His default state is happiness and that’s what he reverts to when he’s not stressed or angry, and I loved that; it felt like a very accurate reflection of how Harry and Ginny’s personalities were combined in him, and also made him feel closer in personality to his siblings. Some Albuses in the past have felt like total black sheep in their family and seemed like they would never ever fit in properly, but Dom has created a character who shares so many characteristics with the Potters and Weasleys, he just needs steering in the right direction a little and then his bonds with them will all fall into place. His mannerisms are very endearing too - because he’s quite short, he comes across as this little ball of energy and determination. He gestures quite a lot and is very focused; when he’s listening to other characters he usually looks like he’s concentrating very hard on what they’re saying and thinking about everything in great detail.

As a pair, Jon and Dom bounce off each other brilliantly. I can’t comment on how Jon’s performance might have changed compared to last year because it was my first time seeing him, but these two seemed to have a fantastic connection already and the friendship they created between Scorpius and Albus was really genuine and supportive. Compared to the other Scorpius/Albus pairs I’ve seen (Anthony/Sam, Harry/Theo, Jordan/Joe), I felt these two were the most similar to each other in terms of their personality and mannerisms, and that made me really happy - it felt like their characteristics had been rubbing off on each other over the years they’d been friends and showed how close they were. Overall I’m just so happy we have these two in these roles; they’re both brilliant fits and I’m hoping to see them as many times as possible this year!

Like I said earlier, when I saw Jamie B in March this year he wasn’t my favourite Harry I’d seen, but I really loved him this time around. I think the other changes in the cast have given him a bit more of a mellow vibe compared to the previous performance I saw and that highlighted some other aspects of his characterisation I really enjoyed. I thought he captured the awkward, dorky side of Harry really well in his little jokes and gestures, and his relationship with Albus was beautifully nuanced - you could understand his frustrations and what caused him to make the mistakes he does with Albus, as well as his trauma and regret. I’m excited to return to his performance and see what else I can spot next time around.

I’ve already raved about Susie earlier but she really stood out to me as Ginny this time and I adored her portrayal of her as this fierce, quick-witted, endlessly patient and generous woman with fantastic emotional intelligence and strength. She’s just like book Ginny and I love her for that. Michelle was a fab Hermione and although I think she’s still got plenty of room to play around with the role and really make it her own, the emotional vulnerability she brought to Hermione was really lovely to see. Tom and James have been the perfect Ron and Draco every time I’ve seen them in those roles and this time was no exception.The rest of the ensemble were all so strong too - Madeleine as Delphi was particularly enjoyable and Rayxia brought some new details to Rose’s character which worked brilliantly. 

*

Ron’s quills

When Albus is in the second timeline, just after he’s woken up in the Hospital Wing, Ron offers him a gift of quills. Joe’s Albus assumes that, because this is a gift from Ron, the quills are going to be a joke. He holds them away from himself and opens them so gingerly, expecting something to jump out at him. 

It says so much about Albus’s relationship with his family, and how there have been good times in the past. He’s so happy to receive a joke gift. He expects something familiar when the world is turning on its head. Of everyone, he knows where he stands with Ron — except here he doesn’t, and when the quills really are just quills, that’s what confirms for him that this world is very wrong indeed. 

‘It’s easy. Watch.’ 

Albus and Scorpius always have a bit of a routine when they’re climbing up on top of the train, but Joe’s routine is utterly ridiculous. Albus tries to push Scorpius up the suitcases onto the roof, but Scorpius panics, so Albus tells him to watch and goes ahead.

Cue Albus trying to show off by leaping up about nine suitcases at once. He takes the most difficult route onto the top of the train possible, just to prove how easy it is. It means he ends up lying on his stomach, kicking his legs in the air, and wriggling around to get himself up. 

Back when Cast Three began, Scorpius always played along and followed Albus’s movements exactly, but in recent months he seems to have figured out that Albus is being ridiculous, because he takes the much easier route, using the suitcases as the ladder they’re meant to be. 

Forgetting the trolley

One show, a few months ago, Albus disappeared off to get on the train without his trolley, only to run back out of the wings a few seconds later to fetch it, giving his mum a suitably sheepish smile as he did. That first time I genuinely thought that he’d forgotten the trolley, but in the following shows it became part of the familiar pattern. The first of Albus’s little disasters. He’s so worried about going to Hogwarts that he’s lost in his head and forgets his luggage. It’s the first sign of things to come. 

‘I’m sorry’

When Delphi is torturing Scorpius, she taunts Albus, telling him to do what he’s told. He knows that if he does, they’ll bring back Voldemort and destroy everything. He also knows that if he doesn’t, Scorpius is going to get hurt. But he’s heard about that other world, and he is certain that they’d both lay down their lives to stop it coming about.

So he looks across at Scorpius and mouths ‘I’m sorry’, and Scorpius responds with a little nod to say that he knows. They’re on the same page. The right thing to do might be the most painful and dangerous option, but it’s the option they’re going to choose to take together. 

That tiny bit of silent communication says so much about Albus and Scorpius’s friendship. They’re in this as a pair, and they’ll live or die that way. 

‘Let’s do something new. Something fun!’

Joe’s Albus was someone who loved to fiddle and explore, to know how things worked. He also had a mischievous streak. He would mess with the Time-Turner while he was holding it, trying to figure it out, and he would also come up with the most ridiculous possible way of destroying it.

There were a couple of different ways that Albus would threaten to lob the Time-Turner off the Owlery. Sometimes he would hold it above his head and start to throw it at the ground. Other times he would make to overarm throw it out at the audience. Either way, Scorpius would have to dive in to stop him. 

Only Albus would think that smashing the Time-Turner on the rocks constituted fun. It would have been messy for sure, but it might also have been effective. We’ll never know. (I did always wonder what they’d do if he did accidentally let go of it one show.) 

‘We’ll be better off without each other’

Joe makes it so very obvious that Albus doesn’t want to be saying goodbye to Scorpius, and Albus tries so hard to communicate that in the limited way he can. 

When Albus says ‘I can’t, okay?’ it’s so soft and gentle. He even puts a hand on Scorpius’s arm. But Scorpius doesn’t follow, and Harry is right there, so Albus’s next words are as snapped and angry as they have to be to put on a show for his dad. ‘We’ll be better off without each other, okay?’ 

It’s a heartbreaking little moment, and it’s so hard to see Albus try to communicate that it’s all an act, knowing that Scorpius is going to end up angry and upset with him. 

‘You‘re a genius, Moaning Myrtle!’

Joe’s Albus always tried really hard to warn Scorpius not to call Myrtle ‘Moaning Myrtle’, but did Scorpius ever pay attention? Of course not. 

Albus would try to move into Scorpius’s sightline and make desperate neck slashing gestures to make him stop (while also attempting to be subtle), but when Scorpius is flailing it’s difficult to get his attention. Cue Albus hiding his face in his hands as Myrtle yelled at Scorpius for referring to her as Moaning. 

‘I’m not going to be a wizard, Dad’

I don’t know how Joe got so good at doing a pigeon coo, but it was uncanny. Personally I only saw him do it once, during a show when Tom Peters was on as Harry, but it was unforgettable. 

Albus told Harry he was going into pigeon racing, and then as Harry did his ‘oh no, pigeons!’ routine, Albus, seemingly just to be provocative, started pigeon cooing at him. I loved it because it showed Albus’s humorous side and his sense of fun. Those moments when he let go enough to tease his dad were a really important step for him. They showed the potential of things to be better, and that one day he might be able to relax enough amongst his family to really be himself.

The Eureka moment 

There have been some jubilant versions of the moment where Albus and Scorpius figure out the solution to contacting Harry, but Joe’s celebration will always be one of my favourites. Albus treated it almost like a football goal celebration. He started jumping up and down while Scorpius was still figuring everything out, and on the last few shows he even did a sort of ridiculous chicken dance because he was so happy. 

It was one of Joe’s Albus’s few moments of pure, unadulterated joy. For a second he would forget everything and just celebrate. There was true hope there, and the parts of Albus that were too often buried under unhappiness would come shining through. 

‘Some for me and some for you’

For a while last summer there were some Gillyweed shenanigans going on. Albus would take a normal amount of Gillyweed for himself and then present Scorpius with an enormous heap of the stuff, which Jonathan would have to find a way of eating in the limited time he had. Often Gillyweed would end up all over the place, on the stage, in Myrtle’s sink, hanging out of Scorpius’s mouth. It was never not a hilarious disaster to see Jonathan stare in trepidation at an enormous pile of Gillyweed that Joe had just handed him. Sadly, such activities get quickly nipped in the bud with this show, but it was extremely entertaining while it lasted. 

Judging Scorpius

Of all the reasons to love Joe’s Albus, the authenticity of his friendship with Scorpius was one of the foremost. The fond, loving judgement he directed at Scorpius whenever Scorpius was having one of his moments felt so real and familiar. It’s exactly the way I interact with my best friends. 

Albus would pace up and down, take deep breaths, mime strangling Scorpius, throw him under the bus, nod along at his ridiculousness before throwing in just one word to show how stupid it was, but it was all done with such love. These were two people who knew each other intimately, who would expect nothing less of one another, and who were happy to tease each other for their essential nature in a way that was laced with love. 

This was the first Albus and Scorpius that truly immersed me in their friendship. With other portrayals I lived for the little moments that hinted of something more, but it was so nice for a year to have deep rooted, loving, warm friendship be just enough. 

‘But this is a graveyard’

Joe was a master of detail, and one of the most perfect was that in the final scene Albus never stood on any of the graves. He would go out of his way to hop over them in fact. Towards the end of the scene, Albus and Harry would look at one of the graves just behind Cedric’s, and as Harry went over to Cedric’s, Albus would leap over the one they’d just been looking at. 

It’s not something I remember anyone doing before, and it was such a tiny thought that meant so much. Albus was respectful and careful. Maybe he was superstitious. There was so much that could be read from that single, simple act, and that was the hallmark of Joe’s performance. He seemed to think of everything, and that made Albus more than a character on stage. It made him someone real and relatable. 

‘No love or luck for me then’

Very early on I noticed how excited Albus would get when Harry started talking about giving him the blanket. It seemed strange, given how the scene ends and how quickly Albus rejects ultimately rejects the blanket, so I asked Joe about it and every subsequent performance broke my heart. 

Albus thinks that the blanket is a powerful magical object, akin to the Invisibility Cloak. He thinks that what Harry is giving him is something that will truly bring him luck, after all, that’s how Harry sells it to him. ‘Whenever I’ve wanted luck I’ve found it and just tried to hold it, and I wondered if you...’ 

What Albus needs, or what he thinks he needs, most in the world is luck. Everything goes wrong for him at school, at him, and if only he had some luck maybe everything would be okay. So when he thinks Harry is offering him that, he jumps at it. The heartbreaking part is that he realises almost as soon as he’s got the blanket in his hands that it’s not what he’d hoped, and then he deflates and retreats into himself as he understands that this is just an object of sentimental value. 

There are two things that make this all the more heartbreaking. Firstly, Harry sees him get so excited, he thinks he’s done the right thing, and when Albus’s mood collapses he doesn’t follow. He has no idea what he’s done wrong, all he knows is that they were so close and for some reason he’s lost everything once again. Secondly, the blanket in fact does bring Albus love and luck. It saves him. When he interacts with it in that scene it’s already got the invisible writing on it. The solution is right there in the room with them, and neither of them see it. 

‘There you go, you see, all dry humour and Albus-y’

I think it was Cast Three’s very first performance when I fell in love with Albus’s emergence from the lake post-Voldemort timeline. He popped up out of the water and started imitating the Merpeople in the lake and throwing dry potshots at Scorpius. As soon as Scorpius said his line about Albus’s dry humour I realised that we’d finally found an Albus who really matched it. That line had never quite worked for me before. The other Albuses were dry but they weren’t funny enough, or even funny but not dry enough. So I was overjoyed to finally have an Albus where that description really worked, especially in that particular scene. 

‘Oh my, that’s her!’

One of my favourite things with Cast Three was seeing how Albus was going to hide from Bathilda this time. I saw him pretend to polish the ring that used to be on the Stage Right wall, I saw him try and squish himself into the gap behind the pillar at the edge of the first wing, and best of all I saw him walk into the wall face first and stand perfectly still, as if having his back to her would make him invisible. He was never the most subtle or casual of creatures was Joe’s Albus, but he was certainly amusing.

‘The ironic thing is I didn’t expect that to work’

Every time Joe’s Albus had to cast a spell, whether it was Expelliarmus with Delphi, Incendio in the transition scene, or Allohomora in the final battle, he would always polish his wand on his clothes before he attempted it. Apparently it was a habit he’d got into after one day polishing his wand before doing a spell in class. It had worked that day, so forever after he would do the same thing for luck.

It was another of those little details that brought so much history to Albus. It hinted at his struggles offstage. It was a facet of his character that was so pervasive and constant. It wasn’t something that needed to be there but it was, and that said everything about Albus as a character and Joe as an actor. 

The extra hug

On the theme of things that didn’t have to be there but were, the extra hug that Albus and Scorpius shared in Godric’s Hollow was a perfect example of the extent of their friendship. It was just one instance of their background interactions, particularly in Act Four when they often separate into their family groups and don’t interact much. With Cast Three they were constantly communicating, constantly checking in, and in this moment where Scorpius had just seen his friend disappear into the grate possibly to never be seen again, and they’d just survived the resulting battle, it was only natural that they’d run to each other the second it was safe. 

‘Zap her?’

Some of Joe’s best moments came when he was saying nothing. It was like once Albus was out of the spotlight and the pressure was off he could be himself. It seemed hard to relax when he was under scrutiny, but if he wasn’t expecting to be paid attention it didn’t matter, so he would come alive. 

One of the best examples of this was when Ron suggested that they should zap Delphi. Albus look immediately delighted by the idea, like it was the best suggestion ever. Then Draco would step in and question it, and Albus’s face would instantly fall a little bit, like hmm, maybe it wasn’t a good idea after all, and he’d turn back to Ron to see what he thought. It was like Albus was watching a game of tennis, observing Draco and Ron batting this suggestion back and forth between them, and the animation of his reactions was brilliant. He didn’t seem to know whose side to be on. I suspect he was secretly a fan of both of them. 

‘He used to do this smoke ring thing with you’

Joe’s Albus had the most wonderful ability to make Harry laugh at exactly the right moments. The best example was in the final scene, when he was talking about James doing the smoke ring thing with baby Harry. Albus would wiggle his finger round in a circle, right up to Harry’s face, and Harry would laugh despite himself, and Albus would smile and go ‘there, see? You couldn’t stop giggling’. 

It was such a sweet interaction. It showed a new level of comfort between the two of them, and I can’t help but think that Harry would love Albus’s humour, and would be so pleased to be part of it. There was so much love there. Even though things were difficult, they could still manage to share moments like that, and those were the things that brought them closer together as father and son.

‘I thought we decided we don’t hug’

Moments of complete peace for Albus in the play are almost exclusively reserved for when he’s asleep, but Joe managed to insert one into the final Scorpius and Albus hug. It developed over the last few months of his run in the show. When Scorpius hugged him, Albus would bow his head onto Scorpius’s shoulder or into his hair and lose himself for several long seconds. It was like he’d completely forgotten the world around him, the fact that they were in the middle of one of Hogwarts’ corridors, the fact that they weren’t meant to hug. It was a moment of complete solace and it was beautiful. 

The one thing that’s demonstrated throughout the show is that Albus and Scorpius find peace in each other’s company. Right from when they start talking on the train and the light changes and the rest of the train disappears so it’s just them in their own little world, they’re never at home as they are when they’re together, and it was wonderful to see that acknowledged in the final hug they share. 

Propping up pillows

One of Joe’s Albus’s little habits was to always prop up the pillow on whatever bed he was on. Whether it was the bed in the hospital wing, his bed at home, or the bed in his dorm, the first thing he’d do was to rest the pillow against the bedstead. For a character who’s so often uncomfortable and out of place, it was the one sign of ownership he had. It was Albus quietly claiming a space as his own.

With that in mind, the most beautiful and meaningful example of this was always in the scene when Harry and Ginny find the blanket on Albus’s bed. Before Albus climbed on the bed between them he would flip the pillow up, and it always felt like even from afar he was taking ownership of the space and the situation. It was a tangible sign of his presence, and it reminded me of how Jamie P would often whip his head round to look at Albus as Albus ran off stage after finishing the message on the blanket. From a different time and place, Albus is felt so clearly in that scene. Sometimes Harry is aware of him, sometimes he’s not, but he’s always there, and Joe’s Albus leaving the pillow just so was perfect proof of that. 

‘He did everything he could’

Right from day one, I think my favourite detail from Joe’s performance was the moment when Albus takes Harry’s wand so he can hold his hand. It’s so gentle and supportive. It’s everything Harry needs in that moment. And it shows how far Albus has come. The fact that he’s there for his dad and that he can offer those quiet words, ‘he did everything he could’, say so much about Albus’s good heart and how hard he’s trying. 

Over just the course of the events in Godric’s Hollow, Albus and Harry see so much of each other and learn so much, and this is the perfect culmination of that. What Joe did was to make that more than just words. It’s an action too. It’s Albus being with his dad 100%, opening himself up to sharing his dad’s pain. 

Death Eater Dance (Act Three, Scene One)

I had the nerdiest way of figuring out they’d changed this bit of choreography. At the very start, before anyone comes onstage, a wall of white light unfurls across the back of the stage, and I looked at it and thought ‘wow, that light doesn’t normally move so fast’. About two seconds later, the lead Death Eater stepped through it, which he’s never done before, casting a shadow, and I realised I had been right.

My first thought was is nothing sacred? On reflection, however, I absolutely love this new version of the dance (and I love how this cast performs it — I’ll say it again, they’re all great movers). 

The lead Death Eater stands at the back initially, watching and occasionally gesturing to direct those walking across the stage. It reminded me of a darker version of the Sorting Hat’s choreography from the opening of the show. 

After that things proceed in a very similar way to how they always have, but there are just enough little changes to throw the whole thing off kilter slightly, and I mean that in a good way. There’s a vibe that there’s something unsettling going on here, something slightly unexpected. The lines are clean and precise, but there’s an occasional lean or spiky gesture that throws the lines out of place. As a viewer you feel like Scorpius in that world — like the whole thing is unpredictable and untrustworthy, dangerous almost, and it leaves you on edge. 

My favourite moment for that is when all the Death Eaters are walking in their arrow head towards the back of the stage, and they suddenly all lean to the side. It’s a sharp movement that comes out of nowhere. Very jarring, as it should be. 

The other fun little detail at the end is that the Death Eaters sort of bow to Umbridge. It’s not quite a bow, more a sort of arms in the air, lean forward ‘all hail’ kind of motion, that feels so true to the dictatorial nature of this world and of Umbridge’s hold over the school. 

Inside Hogwarts (Act Three, Scenes Two, Four, and Five)

This section in the Voldemort timeline really emphasised for me how much I enjoy this cast’s Yann, Polly, and Karl. On Thursday we had Craig’s Karl doing a badass jumping, spinning high kick as he came on stage, and on Sunday we had Gordon’s brilliance (and slightly more restraint), which matched really well with Luke’s Yann. I noticed in both shows as well that Yann and Polly share a moment of eye contact as Yann goes off after confronting Scorpius. I like the idea that those two come as a pair. 

Polly’s scene on the stairs was really nice too. She seemed truly confused by Scorpius. At the end of the scene she starts walking down the stairs, but as the staircase is swept towards the wings she starts running back up them again, peering over the bannister and frowning down at Scorpius, like she wants to keep watching him for as long as possible to try and figure him out. It’s almost as if she realises that this isn’t her Scorpius, it implies a relationship with and knowledge of the Scorpion King that’s really interesting. There’s a lot to think about there. 

Have I mentioned before that Ronnie as Craig is wonderful? Even if I have it bears repeating a thousand more times. In the scene with Scorpius in the library he’s sort of skittish, constantly keeping his distance, shying away, head bowed. He’s just very sweet, with a soft northern accent. Not really pompous in any of the timelines. Just a good kid who wants to get on with his quiet life. Sadly it’s never going to happen for him...

My love affair with David’s blackboard writing is well documented, and over cast change he really delivered with some appropriately feelingsy Latin phrases. For cast four’s first show we had the perfect Carpe Diem — seize the day. It was such a sweet little message from Snape to a brilliant incoming cast, and I hope this will become a tradition now (just assuming that David will stay as Snape forever, which hopefully he will). 

Scorpius joins Dumbledore’s Army (Act Three, Scenes Eight and Nine)

There were definitely a few things to mention in the second half of the Voldemort timeline, so here’s a quick rundown:

It is an inescapable fact that on Thursday the Dementor trick didn’t work for Michelle. As far as I’m aware that’s only happened now three times in the history of the show, and it was heartbreaking to see it happen to someone on their first show in front of an audience. Thankfully on Sunday it worked, and I can only assume they practiced it about a thousand times on Friday because she was almost as quick as Tom that time (which is saying something because Tom has got really good at it).

There are some interesting new colours going on with the Time-Turner in Part Two, which I have a very underdeveloped theory for (I’ll work on it). It looks like whenever the Time-Turner is used in the past or an alternative timeline, the face is blue not yellow. Having said that, when Delphi uses it to take the boys back to the maze it’s also blue, and technically that’s from the restored timeline, so who knows! Also, just for fun, the gold Time-Turner (which is an entirely different entity) flashes pink when the adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow.

Jonathan feels like he’s pushing himself really hard and trying so many new things. I absolutely loved his interactions with the Dementors and hiding from Umbridge. He’s doing a wonderful job, and I think acting with Dom is going to bring some really fun new stuff out of him. 

On Broadway the Patronus is sort of lifted out of the floor already lit (I’ve only seen it once, but that was how I remember it and how it was described to me as well), and I think that might have made it to London now. From further back on Sunday I saw the Patronus very distinctly being lifted from the ground, and the clunky ignition is definitely a thing of the past. I’m not sure if the London trick is now exactly identical to Broadway’s (I doubt it, just because the abilities of the spaces are slightly different), but it’s certainly more similar now. 

Edge of the lake and McGonagall’s office (Act Three, Scenes Nine cont. and Ten)

Blythe’s McGonagall is so gorgeous, just a sunshiney human being. I loved how on Thursday she couldn’t stop herself from smiling at Scorpius’s antics as he came out of the lake. For as stern as she is, she also recognises a boy thrashing around in complete joy (and how can you not smile at Scorpius’s happiness? You’d have to be heartless).

No one will be surprised to hear that the gossip choreography has changed, just like everything else. There are a lot more people on stage at once, so there’s a lot going on. For me sometimes the interactions seem a little less clear, there’s no longer one message being passed in a clear sequence, but the chaos isn’t bad either. The weirdest bit for me is that Yann now, instead of being lifted off the stairs, sort of falls sideways over the bannisters. Also, at the end of the dance, the kids now end up on the stairs in a different order, with Karl at the bottom, below Rose, James above her, and then Yann and Craig at the top as they always were.

Once they’re all in McGonagall’s office, I have to mention Draco because he’s wonderful. When McGonagall called Scorpius brave, Draco lit up smiling at his son. He looked so unbelievably proud, it was stunning. Also, we all know about how he puts his hand up when he says ‘seems fair’, but it’s worth mentioning that Harry now also raises a hand to mock him. Petty idiots that they are. 

The dorm scene with Harry (Act Three, Scene Eleven)

I absolutely adored the dorm scene between Harry and Albus. It was a beautiful example of how similar Harry and Albus are. Not until they’re together on stage do you realise that Dom and Jamie B’s mannerisms are almost identical. They both twist their hands together and make a lot of gestures. At times they seemed to mirror each other. And then of course there’s the similarity in how heated they get. 

One of my favourite Dom lines in both of these two shows was ‘I know, okay? I know’. I don’t know why, but the word okay is a real speciality of his. It’s guaranteed to hit you in the feels no matter when or why he’s saying it. 

In this scene it was an explosion, accompanied by this big gesture with his hands. He’s so frustrated by Harry, all wound up and taught (his shoulders are constantly hunched, chin sticking out, a bit like a little turtle), you can see the tension in his body, and at a moment like this he can’t keep it all contained. The emotion bursts out in his tone of voice and in his gestures. 

The other really interesting thing from this scene is right at the end, when Harry mentions that Ginny was really scared by Albus running away. It seems as though Dom’s Albus takes that to mean that Harry wasn’t scared or worried. Harry didn’t really care. Ginny did, but he knew that already. And then of course Harry realises how Albus has received that and the mention of him being scared too comes almost as an afterthought, a clarification. Which is why Albus scoffs at it. ‘I thought Harry Potter wasn’t afraid of anything.’ 

This scoffing, sarcastic sharp Albus is so wonderful. He doesn’t have time for his dad’s crap. He doesn’t have the energy. Everything Harry says seems to confirm the worst for him, so while in this scene other versions of Harry and Albus have begun to connect, these two are driven even further apart.

The dorm scene with Scorpius (Act Three, Scene Fourteen)

Oh the glorious new antics that come with a cast change. This scene is a prime example of Jonathan trying new things and them working delightfully well. On Thursday not much was different, but by Sunday it was completely new.

Albus sleeps on his side most of the time, and in this scene he slept on right side, so he was facing into the room and towards Scorpius. So when Scorpius woke up he got off the bed and crawled across the floor to Albus, at exactly face height with him, and when he finally shouted Albus’s name, he was inches from Albus’s face. Albus essentially woke up to a face full of Scorpius attempting to be scary — as if the poor kid needed any more trauma. 

It’s the closest I’ve seen Jonathan (possibly any Scorpius) get to Albus when he’s yelling in his face, and it actually did look scary. It’s one of the most effective versions of the waking up yet, so I hope it stays.

There’s a really nice new line in this scene. When Scorpius tells Albus that he was fighting alongside him, Albus asks ‘really?’ I think it just emphasises how much Albus needs to hear Scorpius’s story. He’s so deep in his own despair, and feeling so guilty about having caused all this, that to hear that he had some hand in sorting it out is a real boost for him. It’s exactly what he needs to hear right then, and isn’t that what Delphi says? ‘You don’t know what he needs, you only know that he needs it.’

Owlery Scene (Act Three, Scene Sixteen)

There are some new lines in this scene! As if anyone didn’t know. 

Essentially, the order in which Albus and Scorpius exchange lines throughout the scene has been switched (I think in its entirety, but I can’t be sure because I keep forgetting there are new lines until ‘and wake up everyone in Hogwarts’ jars me halfway through). But basically, now Scorpius is the one making all the suggestions (even the stupid ones) while Albus shoots them down, and I’m still not sure what I think of that.

Before I really enjoyed that Albus was making ridiculous suggestions and Scorpius was vetoing them, because then it came to Godric’s Hollow there was a nice switch, with Scorpius making all the suggestions until Albus came up with the big one. So now it feels like Albus doesn’t really suggest anything until he solves it right at the end.

I suppose you could argue that that makes sense character wise. Scorpius is the more magically knowledgeable, Albus at that point is lacking in confidence, and I feel like as a planner Albus is probably the more inclined of the two to sit in silence and think before speaking. 

But at the same time I liked how Albus’s reckless energy came out in this scene. Particularly with Joe there was a sense of fun and freedom, that they were about to end at least some of their problems. It was nice to see the two of them unleash their more ridiculous sides, and it showed so much of their friendship. Perhaps the scene still does that, but I don’t think it does it in quite the same way.

I know we get ‘let’s make history’ out of it so we can’t really complain, but as nice as that line is, and as strong as it is as a line that sums up their relationship, I don’t know if even that has the power of what’s been taken away. I’ll have to have a few more watches.

A quick shoutout to Jonathan in this scene though. I love how his Scorpius sits up straight, crosses his legs, and prepares to go into full, slightly sanctimonious, lecture mode as he says ‘I think it’s a much underestimated part of modern witchcraft’. We’ve always known that if Delphi didn’t interrupt the scene would go on with the boys arguing for hours, but it’s never been more apparent. That lecture alone is about to last at least a good ten minutes until Albus gets bored and threatens to do something stupid to make him stop.

But Delphi does interrupt, and that’s when the fun begins. 

I mentioned earlier that Madeleine’s Delphi curtsies a couple of times during the show, and this is the second of those. When Scorpius calls her The Augurey she acknowledges it with a little bob. She also emphasises the ‘The’ in The Augurey when she repeats the title. She seems so pleased by the idea of being the one and only, someone really unique and important. 

The interesting thing about Madeleine’s Delphi is that she doesn’t seem to change much after the reveal. When I first saw her I was almost disappointed by that, because she seemed to be playing Albus and Scorpius so hard, but now I actually love it. The fact that she can be bubbly and nerdy and young but also a heartless torturer is really creepy, and it seems quite real too. She’s someone with a mask so good that it’s part of her, and even once she’s shown her true nature, that thing that was attractive to Albus and Scorpius never quite goes away. That’s still in there. 

Sunday’s Owlery Scene provided the perfect start to the torture sequence, setting a momentum that never let up. It was one of the most exciting torture scenes I’ve seen, and I’m willing to bet that it won’t be long before we see some of the wildest torture scenes ever from this cast. 

Torture Scene & the maze (Act Three, Scenes Nineteen and Twenty)

This whole sequence is one of the most difficult for a new cast to nail, and on Thursday I didn’t particularly like it much, but on Sunday it absolutely blew me away. 

It all began with Delphi kissing Scorpius on the cheek. It’s always particularly gross to see her kiss him, not Albus, probably because she has no interest in him whatsoever, but also because it psychologically affects both boys, and that’s her ultimate aim. To break them both.

There was a great rhythm to this version of the scene. Each element was given time, but it didn’t feel slow. Delphi torturing Scorpius for the first time and Albus running at her were two very distinct actions. You could hear exactly what Albus yelled, and it meant that when he was knocked back by her spell and collapsed in a heap on the ground, all eyes were on him. (Dominic makes that knockback spell look much more lethal than anyone else ever has, and I love that because it’s just like her. She wouldn’t not hurt Albus simply because he’s useful, and I like that he gets his fair share of pain.)

Once Albus is on the ground he stays there through the second torture and Craig’s death. There’s a new scream of Albus’s name before Craig runs on, and I’m convinced it’s Craig, but others have reckoned it’s Scorpius. It’s very difficult to tell, but I’ll keep an eye on it (cause I’d love to know who it is). 

When Ronnie dies, he throws himself straight back onto the table that catches him, and he ends up falling with both feet off the floor. I love the idea of the AK blasting Craig off his feet, and there’s something morbidly beautiful about him falling to the ground in slow motion (which in a way mirrors Delphi’s fall from grace later). It could be that the boys are just seeing it in slow motion thanks to their horror, or it could be that the AK really does slow everything down like that. 

There were a couple of other noteworthily creepy bits and pieces in this scene. On both Thursday and Sunday, Delphi held Scorpius by the chin while she talked to him and Albus, before throwing him aside like a piece of rubbish so he collapsed to the ground. Also on Sunday she held him so close to her face that they were inches apart, while telling Albus that if he didn’t help her, Scorpius would die. It was horrifying. 

Moving into the next scene, I have to give a shoutout to Gordon as Krum. He was perfect. Clean and sharp and precise. The other person who was perfect was Ryan as Cedric. On Sunday we had the most beautiful little interaction between him and Albus.

Dom’s Albus doesn’t sit or kneel down in this scene, so when he interacts with Cedric he’s standing. He still looks small and nervous, shoulder rounded, but it takes so much boldness to reach out like he does. It’s so brave. And on Sunday it was said with just the right amount of softness. Sort of stammered, blurted out at first, but then more considered the second time. I don’t think Dom’s Albus will ever be quiet, but he’s thoughtful and gentle as well as fierce. It’s such a perfect mix, and it makes this scene work so well. 

With cast three Ryan was good, but he’s really come into his own this year already. His Cedric has just the right nobility, but he also seems perplexed by Albus. He doesn’t know what to make of this strange boy, and that confusion is tangible throughout the scene, even when he says thank you. But he has courage too, because as uncertain as he is (he even thinks twice before freeing the boys), he still accepts Albus’s words. These are two boys putting themselves out there and blindly trusting, even in the midst of so much fear and uncertainty. It’s gorgeous to watch.

On Sunday this whole sequence finished perfectly with a shower of glitter in the air (on Thursday it all fell straight to the floor). The boys had so much energy and dynamism as they tried to work out what to do. The whole thing was fabulous. Full of life and interest, and it’s only going to get better. 

Delphi’s room (Act Three, Scene Twenty-One)

There’s a really cool new creepy purple light in Delphi’s room. When Ginny takes the lightbulb off the wall, the diamond behind it starts glowing with the purple light, ready to spread and illuminate the whole room. It also emits puffs of smoke that curl across the scene. It really works, accompanying the Parseltongue to instantly suggest that they’ve found something here. 

Godric’s Hollow (Act Four, Scenes Three and Five)

There were some really sweet little moments throughout the two Godric’s Hollow scenes (as there always are).

I love watching how Albus hides (or attempted to hide) from Bathilda. His idiot side comes out, and he does delightful things like freezing in plain view and pretending not to exist. Dom was no exception, and he went pretty much face first into the wall. If she can only see his back, he’s not there, right? (Wrong, Albus, but you’re adorable so we’ll let you off.)

When Scorpius was freaking out about Bathilda, Albus did a little ‘breathe’ gesture. It’s something that Joe used to do a long time ago, and James does it as Draco sometimes after Scorpius and Draco hug. I adore the fact that both Jonathan’s associated Albuses and his Draco have all agreed that he doesn’t breathe enough, and are all on a collective mission to remind him to do so. There’s something sweet about the fact that all these people have separately come to the same conclusion about the role they need to play in relationship with this boy. 

At the beginning of the second Godric’s Hollow section, Albus and Scorpius duck under their dads’ arms and walk in a circle around the stage before taking up their thinking positions. On Thursday they did this, and on Sunday Jonathan did it, but Dom did something way more interesting. Instead of walking in the circle, he paced back and forth across the stage a couple of times, gesturing silently like he was thinking aloud. 

It reminded me of what Samuel used to do during the part of the Voldemort timeline where Scorpius is explaining to Ron and Hermione in slow mo about the Time-Turner and the other timelines. He’d pace around, making talking gestures with his hands, and ultimately arrive in his final position with the conversation almost mid-flow. 

When Dom finally sat down on the doorstep on Sunday, he started talking and it felt like he’d been thinking and talking for hours and that we just happened to have tuned in on this bit of the conversation. It was very cool to see an Albus so obviously mid-planning. That little bit of movement worked incredibly well, and I hope it stays. 

Dom and Jonathan’s version of the eureka moment felt more measured than others. There was still lots of energy, but there wasn’t lots of running and leaping around the stage. In a way that was quite nice, because it kept the focus on the fact that they actually had to make this plan happen now. 

One of the best bits of their celebration was actually the moment when they opened Bathilda’s door and did a delighted double high five. I love it when the boys do recognisable best friend things, and that one really resonated with me because just a week earlier in a moment of sheer joy I’d done exactly the same thing. It felt really right. 

My other favourite little detail from this scene was the fact that Dom’s Albus, exactly as it says in the script, didn’t seem entirely sure how to pronounce demiguises. There was a minute hesitation there, and he said it almost as a question. I think of all the Albus’s I’ve seen, Dom’s is instantly the one that most takes me back to those details from the script, which is lovely. 

The adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow (Act Four, Scenes Six, Seven, and Eight)

Ever since Cast Three, the scene where Harry and Ginny find the blanket, especially the line ‘we’re starting with Dad’, has become an absolute favourite of mine. Dom’s Albus is so adamant about that line, in his own firm, fierce way. I love how that line shows Albus starting to assert that he wants some sort of relationship with Harry. It’s such an important moment for the character, and when it’s delivered with such power it really sings out. 

I also want to talk about Harry and Ginny’s interaction at the start of this scene in Albus’s room, because it’s the culmination of an arc that really starts with that new silent interaction they have in the scene by the map back in Act One. There’s a really interesting conflict established in their relationship. Although Ginny understands that Harry is trying, her priority is Albus, and Harry keeps pushing him away. It happens in the blanket scene, in the second timeline, in the dorm scene, and now here he is in Albus’s room, and there’s almost a sense of judgement in Ginny’s ‘surprised to find you here’, which instantly puts Harry on the defensive. The conflict seems set to continue, but then, instead of fighting, they take a breath and start talking.

This is a scene that sees them, in a real mature way, address the conflict they’ve had and apologise to one another for it. They forgive each other in just a couple of short lines and instantly start working together and comforting one another. In a sense, it’s the strength of Harry and Ginny’s relationship that saves Albus and Scorpius. If they’d fought instead of coming together and talking maybe they’d have never found the message on the blanket.

I can’t write about the arrival in Godric’s Hollow without mentioning James Howard — you know how it is. Once the hug with Scorpius is over, Draco sets about trying to calm his son down. He puts a hand on his shoulder or reminds him to breathe. Recently, as part of this, he’s started cupping Scorpius’s cheek with his hand, as both a reminder to focus and a gesture of intimacy. 

I love the juxtaposition of that gesture. There’s the size of Draco’s hand, the heaviness of the rings on his fingers, the perception the world has of everything Draco is — dark and dangerous, maybe even cruel. And yet the gesture is so tender and gentle. It’s his past versus his present almost, everything coming together in this one moment to show the person he’s become. I love that something so simple can mean so much, especially coming from that particular character.

As the action moves into St Jerome’s Church, it’s worth a mention that the blocking in the transition has changed slightly. The pumpkins now all line up, and then form a sort of diamond shape, instead of the blob that they used to. 

St Jerome’s (Act Four, Scenes Nine, Ten, and Eleven)

Albus now sleeps the other way round on the bench in St Jerome’s. He used to have his head facing the audience, but now it faces the centre door. I was wondering whether it’s so people can see his face during the scene (not that it does much during that scene). Although the show sends very mixed messages on this. There’s a point in the scene where Ginny walks away from Albus to talk to Harry by the door, and when she does, the light that is on Albus slowly fades out so Albus is in shadow. We’re definitely not meant to be looking at Albus at the time (and I always feel like the lighting is calling me out for doing so) but in my defence, sometimes it’s nice to watch him all peaceful like that. 

There’s some slightly new positioning in the main St Jerome’s scene. Hermione now stands directly behind Scorpius, so when Albus asks what the history books say it could feasibly be a question directed at either of them. 

I adore how proud of Scorpius Draco looks when Ron says ‘blimey, there’s two of them’. Scorpius glances back at him, and Draco gives him a big, warm smile. It must be so nice for Scorpius to finally be bathed in his dad’s approval, especially after everything he’s been through. 

Jonno and Nicholas have ruined ‘Draco, trust my dad’ for me forever, so I was very grateful that Dominic made the decision to stand about as far from Draco as he could get when he said that line. In fact Albus was right next to Harry, and he kind of glanced at Harry as he said it too. I love it when that line is really for Harry, and when Harry takes it as the gift that it is. He sometimes looks at Ginny afterwards, who smiles at him to tell him he’s done well. 

I made it my business to make sure that I could see Albus and Scorpius at the back of the stage during Harry’s transformation, and I spotted Scorpius holding tight to Albus’s arm as Albus stared in horror at what was happening to his dad. Sometimes it feels like Scorpius is all that’s supporting Albus during that moment, and that Albus might collapse without him there. 

When the Malfoys are watching for Harry and Delphi by the door, Draco puts a hand on Scorpius’s shoulder, and Scorpius jumps out of his skin. It’s sad how unused to being touched he is. It’s like when he tries to run away when Draco goes over to hug him. Jonathan’s Scorpius is so skittish around physical touch (including from Albus).

The final battle (Act Four, Scene Eleven cont. and Twelve)

One of the changes with this cast is that Delphi’s voice manipulation has sort of come back. It’s not the same effect as it used to be, where she’d sort of throw her voice around the auditorium, now it’s a more subtle effect that’s applied directly to her speech. There’s a darker, hoarser voice beneath hers that’s a kind of homage to the original trick, and I’m actually really glad it’s back. 

There are a bunch of different possible inspirations for the name Delphi, but one of them is the oracle of Delphi, an Ancient Greek prophet. It links to the fact that she has a new prophecy, and obviously in Harry Potter, true prophecies are spoken in that hoarse, deep voice. I like the connection to that, and with the importance of a prophet as a speaker, a teller of truth and setter of agendas. 

Delphi’s voice manipulation always had real meaning to me. There was a reason to it being there, even if in a narrative sense it sort of came out of nowhere (the trick isn’t introduced to the show before St Jerome’s, which I think I most other things are). There’s no real foreshadowing of it, which is perhaps why it was originally cut. But I am very glad it’s back. 

In this show what I want is to see changes with meaning, purpose, and thought. Changes that have the same level of artistry and love to them as was applied to the original show. Not all of the new changes seem to have that, but I think this one does, so I’m very happy to have it. 

A less successful change in this scene is that they now very briefly unhook Delphi from the wires so she can walk to the front of the stage, before going back and getting hooked on again two seconds later. On Sunday the result was that her face was in darkness for some key bits of dialogue (they took the spotlight off her while someone was unhooking her). It seemed really random and unnecessary, and I get that it’s desirable to show her getting near the pool of light Harry is trying to entice her towards, but ultimately it seems like so much work and faff for very little gain. Hopefully it’ll be smoother next time I see it, but at the moment it’s not really working. 

At the end of this scene, I absolutely loved Delphi’s ‘fall from grace’. As she fell from the air she flapped around, and it looked like a bird whose wing had been injured, which worked so much better than her going horizontal and staying totally still — when she does that it looks like she’s dead, which she’s obviously not. 

Once Delphi had been bound she was really feisty. She snapped at Ron when he grabbed hold of her to keep her still, and then when Albus is telling the others he’s seen her murder she goaded him, giving him a big evil grin, daring him to do it. 

On the subject of Albus during that line, it was one of the most beautiful and effective deliveries I’ve seen. Dom’s Albus runs at Delphi, like he really does intend to try and kill her. It’s almost like Albus has forgotten his wand. All he wants is to get to her and strangle her with his bare hands for what she’s done. He was so desperate to get to her that Harry had to put real physical effort into holding him back, and even Ginny ran round to grab hold of Albus’s arm and help restrain him. 

I love that as a detail because this is the first moment that Albus has had physical power over Delphi since she first bound him and Scorpius. This is his first opportunity to get back at her for the torture she’s put them through and the fact that she murdered Craig. Everything he’s just seen and been through comes bubbling to the surface and he wants her to feel the same pain that he’s been feeling. It’s one of his most powerful moments, and even though it’s misguided, I love that grey side of Albus, the side that is desperate for revenge, the side that is in so much pain that he’s ready to snap. It’s what makes him human as a character. And the fact that Harry and Ginny fight to hold him back as hard as they do shows such love and commitment to him. They’re going to help him stay on the right path no matter what. There’s no judgement associated with it, they perfectly understand why Albus wants to do what he wants to do, but the simple fact is that it’s not the right thing, in fact it’s what Delphi wants, and they’re going to protect Albus from causing himself even more pain by acting emotionally in a moment when his trauma is still so fresh. 

When Albus did finally back off, he and Harry ended up gripping each other’s forearms for a moment, and there was something mutually supportive about that. It’s a band of brothers sort of gesture. They’re in this together. They understand each other. And they’re going to get through it together. 

Another moment of Albus supporting Harry comes during the death scene. I actually saw two different versions of this, because Dominic did it slightly different on both the Thursday and the Sunday. 

On Sunday he gently took Harry’s wand from his hand (Joe style) when he said ‘there is something you could do, to stop him. But you won’t’. It was like he was taking the lesson his parents had just taught him, and the compassion they’d shown him, and was passing it back to his dad by disarming him so he wasn’t tempted to do anything he’d regret. It was a beautiful little reflection of exactly what had gone before. Subtle and quiet and loving. 

On Thursday it was much more of an emotional struggle. When Harry collapsed to the ground after Lily was killed, Albus was holding onto Harry’s wand at the same time as Harry, and was trying to wrestle it out of his hand. Harry’s grip was so strong that it was impossible, so they ended up kneeling next to each other, struggling together, as they were spun away into darkness. Albus was much more desperate about trying to disarm Harry on Thursday, and he didn’t manage it, but just the attempt was really powerful. And the fact that it came at such an emotional moment was beautiful. It wasn’t clear what Harry was going to try and do about what he’d just seen, but he was in such desperation that perhaps anything would have done, and Albus was trying to relieve him of that desperate temptation. 

A big shout out has to go to Ryan, Lucy, and David for their death scene, particularly on Sunday. When I say that Ryan has come into his own with this cast this is the sort of thing I mean. The raw emotion of his performance was breathtaking and so powerful. Lucy was brilliant too, and David brought a creepy softness to parts of the scene that made it spine chilling. 

Penultimate scene (Act Four, Scene Fourteen)

The biggest thing to talk about in this scene is the hug, if that’s what it can be called. This Albus and Scorpius have some truly awkward hugs, which are very sweet but they’re a massive disaster. In this one they ended up doing a lot of patting of each other’s shoulders, chests, arms, hands, and just generally looking like they didn’t quite know what to do with their hands anymore once they’d hugged. Did they want a second hug? Did they want a friendly pat on the back? Who knows! Not me. Possibly not even them. 

The best thing about this scene though is that it was a return to happy Albus. When Dom’s Albus smiles you can see it from miles around. It’s this enormous oval grin, and it’s adorable. I love Dom’s Albus’s capacity for happiness, and it’s nice to see Albus have that side again after two very depressed Albuses in a row. 

Final scene (Act Four, Scene Fifteen)

The ending of the show is sprung upon you in this new version of the show, because they’ve arranged the order of the lines, so lines that used to mark the gateway to the end of the show have now been switched with lines that were a bit earlier on in the scene. It means that as a viewer you’re relaxed thinking you’ve got plenty of scene left to enjoy, and then suddenly Harry and Albus are looking at Cedric’s grave and it’s seconds from the end. 

Basically, the scene goes as normal until about halfway through the section where Albus is talking about his Slytherin side. At that point Harry addresses his names and why they shouldn’t be a burden before going back to the part where he tells Albus his heart is a good one. In a way, the names are used as an explanation of why Albus is fine just the way he is. They’re more integrated into the scene in a way, and I didn’t mind the change (although some people have argued that it interrupts the flow of the scene a bit). 

During this scene, Dom’s Albus sort of hid among the gravestones, keeping his distance from Harry until the very end. He was still clearly anxious around his dad, but when he eventually let go of his inhibitions he was rewarded with one of the most glorious final hugs we’ve ever seen. 

Jamie B and Joe used to share a really tight, warm hug as the lights faded at the end of the scene, but they would always wait until they were almost entirely in darkness. It felt more like them embracing as two actors who’ve just gone through something emotionally exhausting together, and I don’t think Joe’s version of Albus would have hugged his dad like that. However, with Dom, essentially the same hug now begins before the lights have started going down. It becomes much more part of the characters, and I think that shows a real different between Dom and Joe’s Albuses. 

By the end of the show Joe’s Albus still had a long way to go, and he was always going to be a bit of an awkward, miserable teenager. Whereas Dom’s Albus feels much more on the verge of things being okay. He’s happy to accept a hug like that and for it to feel like a sign of things to come. His ending of the show is less about hope and more about arrival — he and Harry are already there, and everything is okay. 

*

So that’s the recap (which got very long, sorry about that...). One final thing to mention before wrapping up is that when you think the show has run out of things to change, they go and make all the post-curtain call music different too. Typical. 

The changes this year are many and overwhelming. The first time I saw them they were almost exhausting because there was a feeling that nothing was the same anymore. But actually, I think a lot of them are good, and we’ll get used to them soon enough, especially when they’re being performed by a cast like this. 

David Mara — Station Master

If I had to pick anyone to step into Martin’s shoes, it would have been David. He was great in every role I saw him cover last year, and he was great in this role too. I like the strange whistle he does at the start of the scene — it reminds me of someone else who used to do proper signalling style whistles — and it’s fun to watch him looking with confusion at the boys as they chat in their corner (although I am concerned by how much he must overhear). I can’t wait to see this scene develop over the year.

Lucy Mangan — Myrtle

I think Lucy’s going to be a really excellent Myrtle (and I can’t wait to see her cover Delphi too). There were some great over the top little touches to her portrayal. When she did ‘the weeping after he was taken’, she cried once then stopped, cried again then stopped, then one of the boys started trying to talk so she held a hand up to stop him while she cried a third time. It’s ridiculous little details like that, which make me most excited to see her again. 

Blythe Duff — Professor McGonagall

They honestly couldn’t have found a better person to take over from Sandy. Blythe is the first McGonagall not to have the Maggie Smith look, but that actually made me love her more. It was her warmth and charm and sparkle that made her feel like McGonagall, and I would probably fight to the death for her already.

Her Trolley Witch was also gorgeous. I’ve seen many Trolley Witch debuts over the years, and even ones I ultimately come to love have felt disappointing first time round, but not this one. She captured the right feeling of ancient, authoritative power so perfectly. I cannot wait to see her again.

Gordon Millar as Karl

Our first cover of the year, and what a good one. On Wednesday and Thursday he went straight onto my ‘must watch’ list, so a big part of me deciding to go for a ticket on Sunday was the desire to see him. 

His Karl is actually quite sweet (which I think stems from Gordon being a lovely, funny human being), but in the St Oswald’s scene Gordon’s character is an absolute — to put it bluntly — dick. He’s a bully, a nasty piece of work, and it really helps the scene (more on that later). I also loved Gordon’s Krum a lot. This one has great movement (like seemingly everyone in the cast), and I cannot wait to see more of him.

Luke Sumner and Emma-May Uden as Yann and Polly

I feel bad lumping these two together but in the show they really did come as a pair. They were perfect fake, popular, nasty individuals. I’ve never hated Yann and Polly more, and I mean that in the best possible way. They were just the sort of people who would bully Albus and Scorpius, and I loved it.

Ronnie Lee as Craig

My heart belongs to Ronnie. There was just something so likeable about him. Sometimes Craig feels like a little ray of sunshine, and that’s just how it should be. Also, I appreciate the boldness of someone who’ll full on lie on the death table, with both feet in the air, so it looks like they’ve been blasted off their feet and are falling to the ground in slow motion. That was an excellent death.

Another thing I noticed about Ronnie was his dance talent. There was a Mackley-esque fierceness to his Death Eater dance, and he was just generally brilliant at the movement. This whole cast is so noticeably strong on the movement — possibly the strongest so far.

Also, while I’m talking about Ronnie I have to mention the other two members of the most adorable trio of Slytherin boys ever — there’s Gordon, as mentioned above, and Duncan Shelton. They had some chants going on in the first task, some excitable stampy feet, and just lots of general sweetness. I can’t wait to get to know these three better. They’re going to be brilliant.

Kathryn Meisle as Umbridge

One of our very first Hogwarts foreign exchange students. I thought she did a really good job, and I particularly thought her Petunia was good. Also, she did a little skip when she was going off after telling Scorpius he was ruining Voldemort, which was just the perfect touch of sweet, girlish, disgusting Umbridge.

Madeleine Walker as Delphi

I had two first impressions of Madeleine as Delphi. First, I don’t know how many of you have seen Puffs, but in terms of attitude and eyeliner she looked just like Megan — like she’s trying to be edgy but is actually just a nerd. My other first impression, related to that, was that Delphi was exactly the sort of person that Albus and Scorpius would want to be friends with. 

She’s awkward and nerdy and has the same vibe as they do. It’s easy to see how well she’s playing them, especially in Part One. But at the same time, once she’s revealed her true self she doesn’t change much, and there’s something very creepy about that. This person who seems so harmless and nice has all this evil lurking literally right under the surface, and she holds very little of herself back. 

It should also be said that at some point this year, Madeleine is going to deliver the wildest Torture Scene we’ve ever had. Even on Sunday she absolutely blew me away, and it’s only going to get better. I’m so excited. 

Michelle Gayle as Hermione

I liked Michelle‘s Hermione. She had a bit of the know-it-all vibe, and her Hermione felt quite young. There was this obvious relation to book Hermione that worked well. I particularly liked her scene in Harry’s office right at the start of the play. She felt like Harry’s friend from the books. I also think that she’s got a lot of great thoughts about the character, and I can’t wait to see her engage with them throughout her performance and develop them over the year.

She made a great attempt to play Delphi Polyjuiced, which I really appreciated. That was a big highlight from her. It’s surprising how rare it is to see the adults actually try to replicate what the kids are doing (aside from Jamie B, who’s a master of the art).

Rayxia Ojo as Rose

Rayxia’s back, and it’s wonderful. Her Rose has always seemed so grown up and mature, and next to Dominic’s Albus she feels particularly so, just because she looks so tall beside him. It’s weird because in all the ensemble scenes she’s one of the shortest people around. Anyway, it’s great to have her back in the show, she works wonderfully with Michelle (there’s a similarity of character there that’s really nice), and I can’t wait to see more from her.

Ryan Mackay as James

I’ve seen Ryan as James a few times before, and always enjoyed him, but he seems to have come into his own with this cast. He particularly owned the Lily and James death scene, and it was uncanny how much he and Dom looked like brothers when they were standing near each in the opening scene. I also adored his Cedric, particularly on Sunday, and he has a very fine background moment in St Oswald’s that I truly think helps make the scene palatable. I’m so pleased he gets an expanded role with this cast and seems to be flourishing with it. 

Dominic Short as Albus

Sometimes when I watch someone play a character in this show for the first time I feel an instant comfort in their portrayal, and that was how I felt with Dom. It was a mixed blessing because I felt so comfortable and confident in him that I didn’t pay him as much attention as I should have done (there was lot to take in), but I really loved him. Thankfully, on Sunday I get to pay a lot closer attention to him, and he absolutely blew me away. Even from near the back of the stalls his expressiveness drew me in. 

His Albus has a certain happiness to him. He’s less broken than the last couple have been. There’s genuine jubilation in his portrayal at certain moments, like when he casts some of the spells successfully and when they figure out how to get a message to Harry.

There are many moments when he reminded me vividly of Sam’s Albus (which will never be a problem), and I loved the flashes of anger and emotion. On first viewing I felt that he was quite a young Albus, especially after Joe whose Albus was quite mature and surprisingly thoughtful. However, on second viewing he felt a lot more self-aware, and there was some real tenderness there. Some absolutely beautiful moments.

One of my favourite things about him was that in Part One he feels wrapped up in his own problems, and you can clearly see the spiral from an enthusiastic boy looking forward to going to Hogwarts to an angry, miserable, withdrawn young man by fourth year. The transition scene was perfectly played in that regard.

I really was very impressed by him. I think he’s the Albus they’ve been trying to cast since the show opened. He has Sam’s fierce anger and prickliness, with Theo’s emotion, Joe’s humour, and an ability to adapt and change to what’s going on around him. We’re only at the start and already he’s sparking my imagination and making me desperate to see more. This is going to be the most excellent year.

*

So, with those first impressions out of the way, let’s get into some changes and great character moments.

Opening and transition scene (Act One, Scenes One to Four)

The weird thing about a first show, especially one in which the person playing the Sorting Hat is staying the same, is that for the first few seconds nothing feels different. It could be any other show. But then the first member of the ensemble walks out and you realise that everything has changed.

There’s a new bit of choreography in the first scene that I was pre-warned of but of course completely forgot about until it happened, so it took me by surprise. The Sorting Hat (who now wears glasses as part of his costume – fun facts) stands in the middle of the stage and manipulates the people around him. There’s a whole group that he diverts with a flash of light, a man he turns round with a gesture, and he makes the woman at the front of the stage walk round her suitcase.

As someone who loves the Sorting Hat, his role in the play, and what it means, the whole interaction felt a bit random. It’s obviously a flashy opening to the show, with a bit of magic, but I’ve never seen the Sorting Hat as a manipulator. I’ve realised recently that he’s a protector and guardian of the boys (particularly of Scorpius) in the same way that Hagrid is a protector of Harry, and he’s also the bringer of magic to the show, but this doesn’t seem to add anything to that. If anything, there needed to be more of the manipulation – there were only three interactions, so it didn’t actually make that much of an impact on someone seeing it of the first time. To me it ought to be go big or go home.

On the second viewing I realised that technically bringing Harry onto Platform 9 3/4 could count as one of the manipulations (it’s got the same sound effect associated with it), and I also realised that he never seems to touch a group that has Delphi in. So maybe there is some meaning in there if you dig a bit.

The first big line change is Lily’s line in the opening scene, which is no longer ‘Are they here? Maybe they didn’t come’. It’s not her wondering whether the Granger-Weasleys are late, and lamenting that they’re always late. Thankfully this isn’t a line from the epilogue, so the change doesn’t really have that much impact. It’s another of the random changes that we now see throughout the show – ones that don’t really make much of a difference, and it’s unclear why they were made.

In this opening scene, seeing Dom and Ryan side by side showed how perfect their casting as brothers is. They look so similar, particularly in face shape. 

Watching this cast for a second time from a distance let me appreciate a really cool James moment properly for the first time. When Albus is being sorted, James and Scorpius are on complete opposite sides of the stage, perfectly symmetrical, and they’re the only two people in the crowd picked out by a spotlight, which illuminates both their faces. It’s like Albus’s Sorting is visibly tearing him between his family and his new best friend, and it lets you see both their reactions perfectly — James’s bewilderment and Scorpius’s disbelieving excitement. 

Going back to the opening scene, we got to see the first glimpse of Dom’s Albus before anything happens to him. There’s a youthful joy there. He laughs at Ron’s jokes and seems to be relaxed around his family. He’s genuinely excited to be going to Hogwarts. Until he gets there…

There are directions throughout the transition scene that with each passing year, Albus gets more withdrawn and miserable, and that’s just how Dom played it. You could see the process of Albus becoming increasingly demoralised with life at Hogwarts, and it was wonderful. Right from the start, Dom had such ownership over Albus, putting his stamp on the role, and even just the first scene made me excited to see him in Part Two – it was an excellent start.

In the first show everything was technically perfect, but in the show on Sunday, the fire didn’t work on the Incendio trick. However, Dom’s cover for it was perfect, and added something to the character. He just sighed very heavily and sort of threw his hands in the hair as he said he didn’t expect it to work anyway. I never realised before how that line is so open to all possibilities.

The next few obvious changes came in the transition scene: Scorpius now offers Rose a rose in London (is it a trick rose? It looked like it had a collapsible stem to me), also, when the boys’ potion explodes, the kids around Albus and Scorpius flop forwards instead of bending backwards. And then, of course, you get the wand dance.

Dominic was so bold in the wand dance, which I really enjoyed. Nothing was held back and everything was extended and gone for. There was actually lots I loved about the new choreography in this scene too (I think it was one of the biggest successes of all the changed elements). There are lots of circles and lines, and my favourite moment was when all the other kids circled round Albus, leaning in and looming over him. I also liked that he got a moment to fit in and help the others – just a brief flash of success, that must be all the more painful for being so fleeting.

The new wand dance begins with a big flashy trick – the current shot of fire now connects up to a sort of flaming rope on the ceiling, so that brief spark flies all the way from the bottom to the top of the stage. It ends with the usual red smoke, and one of the other kids taunting Albus: “Even his wand wants to be in Gryffindor”.

To briefly backtrack, I need to give a quick shoutout to Dom’s “I stayed for your sweets” from Sunday. He did a little dad dance as he said it, and I can only describe it as like he was milking a cow. A little up and down motion with his hands, fists clenched. I know it sounds weird (this show has made me write some very bizarre descriptive phrases) but he made it work, even if he did look like a ridiculous nerd doing it. 

Blanket Scene (Act One, Scenes Six and Seven)

I really liked the introduction to Delphi in the scene before the Blanket Scene. Her conversation with Albus is really sweet, and she curtised to him before she went off to talk to Amos (the first of two curtsies in the show — the second was to Scorpius when he called her The Augurey). 

One of her finest moments was when she shook hands with Harry and looked at the scars on his hand. You could feel her reading ‘I must not tell lies’ and mentally calling him out for lying right in front of her. After all, he does know about the Time-Turner, she knows he does, and she also knows that he’s lying to Amos. It was such a powerful, silent moment of judgement. A gorgeous little detail.

In the Blanket Scene itself, I adored how Dom’s Albus interacted with his siblings. Because I was so far away for the Sunday show I couldn’t actually see or hear Albus laughing at James’s antics, but I could see his shoulders bouncing from the laughter. And then when Lily comes in looking for her Potions book, Albus holds his hands up to say it’s not his fault. It’s only when Harry comes into the room that he finally sits down, perched on the edge of the bed, and from that moment he never really relaxed or seemed comfortable. His space had been invaded, and he tensed up almost immediately. 

Once they got into the scene itself, we found an angry Albus, who wasn’t afraid to raise his voice and fight back. At no point did he seem even close to accepting the blanket, and there was an expression on his face that said that he hated his dad’s reasoning for giving it to him. He knew the gift was all about Harry, and he detested it right from the word go.

One of the things I noticed about Dom’s Albus was how he always shrank back, never holding his ground. He ended up occupying parts of the stage that people don’t normally go to – only by a few centimetres sometimes, but it was still noticeable. In this scene he was pushed well back beyond the bed, and again in the final scene he hid among the graves, keeping a physical distance from Harry. In this particular scene it worked really well, the shrinking away, closing himself off, as Harry got more heated. I also loved that he said the final line of the scene the original way round: ‘No luck or love for me then’. 

Dom’s is one of the angriest Blanket Scenes we’ve had for a while. He really explodes, and it’s wonderful. He fully unfolds the blanket when he describes it as mouldy, and gives it a look of disgust that Harry is so upset by. 

St Oswald’s (Act One, Scene Thirteen)

I have now seen the new St Oswald’s three times (once on Broadway, twice in London), and I still can’t say that I’m convinced by it. 

At first I hated it. With a passion. It starts off alright, with a biscuit palace appearing onstage, then quickly descends into something quite distasteful. The stage direction in the script for this scene is about magic being done for fun. It’s supposed to be joyful, people who can do magic because they love it rather than having to do it for work or study. It should be colourful and vibrant, as well as chaotic.

What we get is certainly chaotic, but as the employees of St Oswald’s play various tricks on the residents, there’s an uncomfortable feeling to the scene. There’s not a nice spirit there. Previously the scene has been hilarious and delightful. Now it’s just mean, and borders on elder abuse, which just isn’t necessary. The scene could have been remade without going anywhere near that territory, and I do think it’s a serious misstep. Not to mention the fact that some of the tricks are so juvenile and fake (one lady gets stuck inside a sofa, with a pair of legs that are so clearly not her own sticking up in the air). 

On Sunday, my third viewing of it, however, I did start to see sort of what they were going for, and there were a couple of redeeming features. When you sit close to the front it’s difficult to see the choreography going on towards the back of the stage, so sitting further back allowed me to see Ryan’s role in the scene, and I loved what he brought to it. 

His staff member has a very brief role in proceedings, but I think it’s essential. While Gordon was bullying the residents (which he did with incredible viciousness), Ryan was looking utterly horrified. There was an expression on his face that just said ‘this is so far from okay, I’m not doing this’, and that was the point when he exited the scene. 

It was really good to see someone in character acknowledging how bad what was going on was, and showed a self-awareness that I hadn’t realised was there before. There was also the fact that at the end of the scene, when the nasty staff member gets his comeuppance (he ends up holding a teacup that’s spilling over with fire), the residents of St Oswald’s all started dancing and enjoying themselves. Those two things combined really helped me with it, and I think with further viewings I might come around to accepting it. 

It is still frustrating to have to work so hard on it though. I’ve always loved this show for its artistry and joyful magic, and this scene feels like an unnecessary step away from that. What was wrong with the original, very funny, perfectly good spirited version of the scene? 

Around the map (Act One, Scene Seventeen)

The scene where the adults talk around the map, trying to work out where Albus and Scorpius might be, is always a bit of a dark horse of a scene. It doesn’t feel that important, but there’s always so much fascinating character work going on there. And so it was in this show.

I caught Harry and Ginny having a silent conversation, in which Harry told Ginny not to mention what he said to Albus. I’m pretty sure that was because he didn’t want Draco to know, and if he had to tell Hermione he’d rather tell her in person. And yet of course Ginny brings up an opportunity for him to tell everyone. It made it feel almost as if she was betraying him, which did actually work.

There’s a lot of conflict during the show between Harry and Ginny. It’s hidden because their relationship is so strong and they do spend so much time interacting. They obviously love one another. But Ginny does find Harry’s actions difficult to swallow sometimes. She calls him out on them. And that tiny interaction in this scene really laid the groundwork for that.

Ginny’s priority throughout the play is Albus. Harry is a grown man who can look after himself, and while she loves him, she knows that Albus is by far the more vulnerable party here, and she’s going to fight every step of the way to find him and help him. In this scene, getting Harry to admit what he’s done is the best way of achieving that, so she makes it happen. She doesn’t actively tell everyone what Harry’s role in Albus’s disappearance was, but she puts him in a position that enables him to tell the truth.

To know that that came from a silent conversation between the two of them was so fascinating, and it added an extra dimension to the journey they take through the rest of the show. We could not be more lucky. Jamie and Susie are such fantastic actors, and the thought they bring to their characters is game changing.

Opening of Act Two (Act Two, Scene One)

Here were a couple of changes that I loved straight away. Before in the dream sequence, young Harry has been haunted by a single, ghostly hand, and that’s still the case. Except in the new version, by the end there are three hands reaching for him.

This might be a bit random, but I really liked the fact that there were three hands, not four. The odd number threw things off and added to the creepiness of it. There was something even more unnatural about the dream. And actually what I noticed throughout the show is that in the moments that are meant to be unnatural and wrong, tiny bits of choreography have been tweaked to make that vibe feel so tangible. 

The other great thing about this new version of the dream is that Harry finally does look like he’s wet himself. It’s a detail that should have been added years ago, but I’m glad it’s here now. Also, Harry’s clothes are now genuinely too big for him. They look like adult’s clothes, just the way they should. Those little things make all the difference.

The adults visit McGonagall’s Office (Act Two, Scene Three)

There were so many reasons to love Blythe as McGonagall, but one of my favourites came in this scene. As they were leaving the office to go and find the boys, she saw Ron with the napkin tucked into his top, and reached across to take it off him with a tut. It was so brusque and no nonsense, plus it hinted at her familiarity with him and the others. Although she holds power over them (even Hermione) by virtue of being one of the most wise and respected figures in the Wizarding World, this group are also colleagues in a sense — fellow soldiers who have fought through a war together — and the respect goes both ways. Respect and fondness. Almost a familial bond. It was such a sweet little touch. 

Expelliarmus Scene (Act Two, Scene Four)

This is one of the big trick scenes that can go wrong, but I’m pleased to report that it didn’t in either show. There was an air of confidence from both Madeleine and Dom, and the trick worked really smoothly. Being able to pull that one off with such panache must take guts, especially first time out, and they did a great job. In fact they were both very good with the magic throughout.

Another excellent Delphi moment came at the end of this scene (only in the first show — sadly it wasn’t repeated on Sunday). After she kissed Albus on the cheek, Scorpius did his normal flailing routine in front of her, and she was having none of it. She rolled her eyes and, from several metres away, did a fake little ‘mwah mwah’ in the air, roughly directed to either side of his face. It was sarcastic, impatient, and designed to let him know that he needed to get out of her way fast, which he did. It was a great way of handling his ridiculousness.

Bane and the search for the boys (Act Two, Scene Five)

One of the little details I noticed during the opening of this scene, when everyone was searching the forest, was that Harry wasn’t quite alone when he started calling for Albus and Scorpius. On Wednesday I assumed this was just because the ensemble were a little bit slow getting off the stage, but it was the same on Sunday too, and I was really pleased. I liked it as a sign of Harry’s desperation. Even amongst all these other people helping him, he starts shouting for his son. No waiting for a private moment. No embarrassment. Just his guilt and his need to get his son back safely.

First Task (Act Two, Scene Seven)

If anyone was afraid that the First Task might be a little quiet without the Mackley, Josh, and James Phoon show, you needn’t be. There was plenty of chaos going on, enough to make it difficult to watch the main action.

This was the scene that made me fall in love with the trio of Slytherin boys – Ronnie, Gordon, and Duncan. They were simply wonderful, and absolutely adorable. They had a little chant that I couldn’t quite catch (I think it might have been Cedric related), and then there was some excitable chanting of Krum’s name when he was announced. Also, Ronnie kept stamping his feet to emphasise his applause, and it looked like the three of them were having a whale of a time.

On Sunday, when Gordon was in Hufflepuff, Ronnie went on a Josh-style excursion to visit him, which was very sweet. When he got back to Slytherin there was a lot of hat stealing and Krum chanting and just general chaos. 

Hospital Wing (Act Two, Scenes Eight and Nine)

Albus had a little nightmare while Harry was talking to Dumbledore. He didn’t thrash around as much as Theo used to, it was quite contained, but he was definitely bothered by something going on in his head. There’s something nice about an Albus waking up with a shout of his dad’s name. Even after everything, he still subconsciously loves and needs his dad.

Another little detail from this scene was that this Albus actually ate some of the chocolate. It’s always fun to note who does and doesn’t (Joe very much did not).

One of my favourite Dominic moments came in the scene after this one, when Albus tells Scorpius that he can’t speak to him anymore. He was sharp with Scorpius, but it seemed to be driven by his desire to at least try and do what was necessary to make peace with his dad. However, he was certainly not happy about it. After he’d told Scorpius they’d be better off without each other, he turned to his dad to say ‘okay?’ It was spiteful, spat out, as if saying ‘are you happy now?’ As much as he wants his dad’s affection, he hates the things he has to do to try and get it.

Staircase Ballet (Act Two, Scene Twelve)

This was the first scene where I really noticed the difference in height between Jonathan and Dominic. I obviously knew that Jonathan is the tallest Scorpius we’ve ever had and Dominic the shortest Albus, but there’s something about seeing it in person that makes it all so much more real.

The two boys came together at the top of the stairs (the point when they’re standing side by side, and Albus is trying to avoid Scorpius’s eyes) and there they were. Tall and tiny.

The other thing I really loved about this staircase ballet came from something I’ve noticed before. While Scorpius moves through Hogwarts with ease, from staircase to staircase without a thought, Albus hits dead ends and has to wind his way through the school. It’s like the school accepts Scorpius, but is rejecting Albus. And in both these shows, when Albus walked out from the wings to climb the staircase and meet Scorpius in the middle, he was faced with the wrong end of the staircase. Instead of having steps leading up, there was an unattainable ledge high above him. It was just another sign of the school shutting him out. Another barrier. Sometimes he must feel that he can’t possibly get anywhere – even the building is against him, let alone the classes, his magic, and his fellow students.

Library Scene (Act Two, Scene Sixteen)

I don’t remember much from this scene on Wednesday, but Sunday was vivid, so let’s talk about that. In fact, let’s just talk about Dominic. 

In every scene, but in this one particularly, his body language alone carried right to the back of the theatre. While Scorpius was yelling at Albus, most of the time he was on the verge of stepping forward. He wanted to interrupt, to defend himself, to just say something, maybe even apologise. He was constantly on tiptoes, half stepping forward, half rooted to the spot, shoulders hunched, Time-Turner cradled in his hand. 

Then Scorpius started talking about his mum, and that was when Albus finally stopped trying to interject. He stepped back, bowing his head. He seemed to shrink, and all the fight went out of him until there was just despair. 

When I first saw Dom’s Albus I thought he might be selfish, but on Sunday I realised just how self-aware he is. Especially in the library scene he was so conscious of everything he’d done and said, and what Scorpius was directing at him. It was heartbreaking to see him crumble like that. And when he got onto his apology there was such softness to it, but also power, this drive to let Scorpius know the truth. It was such a beautiful apology, and I’m so pleased that by Sunday Dom had already found Albus’s softer side, because (probably down to nerves) that was the one thing I was lacking on Wednesday and Thursday. 

The other big thing to talk about in this scene has to be the hug. I don’t even know if it can be described as a hug, because there wasn’t much of the boys holding onto each other. While Dom did attempt to do some hugging, Jonathan just draped himself over Dom’s shoulders. He was hanging off him, arms dangling down his back. Only very briefly did Scorpius actually pat Albus’s back, before they parted. It was one of the most awkward disasters of a hug I’ve ever seen. I loved it.

Act Two ending

A couple of little things to finish off Part One:

McGonagall absolutely embraced ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’. She did the most epic wand swish, and was really going for it. Rebellious McGonagall might be my absolute favourite thing to come from the show.

When the boys are under the lake, they now have wild static hair. I noticed it first because I spotted how wild Dom’s hair was. Then I noticed that Scorpius’s wig was sticking up. It took me a second to twig that it was because they were meant to be underwater. At first I thought it was a nice touch, but then I realised that, because the hair doesn’t move like they’re underwater, it kind of just looks like they’ve been attacked with balloons backstage. Also, I feel really sorry for Dom who has to brush that mess out before he can go and have lunch. A little puff of wind or something to make the hair move might make the whole thing more effective. It’s difficult to tell. But for now I guess I’ll just be entertained by how wild they look.

Umbridge did a very creepy skip as she went off after telling Scorpius about Voldemort Day. It was chillingly perfect; just the right amount of gross girlishness.

The Dementor on stage left is wild. Both on Wednesday and Sunday it kept pogoing up and down like mad. I kind of love it. It’s very excitable. 

*

Once I’d got myself back under control, my next impression was that he was very still – hands clenched together, straight back, chin up. It was weird for that to be one of my early impressions of a Scorpius, and it threw me off a bit, but it made sense. This Scorpius seemed to have his Scorpion King impression firmly in place. There wasn’t a moment where he really gave himself away, at least not initially.

There were a few things that stuck out to me through the next few scenes. The first was in the scene in Draco’s office. I loved the emphasis on ‘I don’t want to be who I am’. It wasn’t a stress I’d heard during that line before, and it brought out this unhappiness and frustration. Also in that scene, I noticed that James Howard as Draco was really taking his time over his lines. There were lots of long pauses and space for thought. It’s always fascinating to see how someone’s interpretation changes when faced with a new cover. The other really big thing I noticed was how having a mixed race Scorpius brought a new emphasis to the discussions of Astoria in this scene. It threw Lucius’s negative opinion of her and her defiance into a different light, in a way that I’d considered before when thinking about what it might be like to see James as Scorpius, but hadn’t expected to feel quite so tangibly when watching the scene.

In later scenes, the big thing I noticed was that James’s Scorpius stood firm when Snape pointed his wand at him before casting ‘Colloportus’. I’ve seen a lot of Scorpiuses end up cowering on the ground at the point, or at least flinching away. This one didn’t move an inch. The next few scenes were also where I started to notice the attention to detail in James’s movement – this is one of our movement captains after all; would we expect any less? The big one I noticed was in the First Task repeat, when the Time-Turner started to play up, there was a very defined jerkiness to the movement that went along with that. Normally it’s a general flail, but this was a Time-Turner that was desperate to get moving back to the present, tugging Scorpius from side to side as he tried to control it.

The scene that really started to shape my impression of James’s Scorpius was the lakeside encounter with the Dementor, right before Scorpius makes it back to the normal world. There was a real sense of both fear and resilience in this scene. For comparison, I would call Jonathan’s Scorpius bold in Part Two, but James’s wasn’t that. There was a bravery that came from the fear. He never quite conquered it, but he suppressed it, and found a strength that was greater than the fear. In this scene that was so obvious – he goes straight from this Dementor attack to suddenly having to hide from Umbridge. It’s the scene where they’re most on the edge of jeopardy, and Scorpius was shaking and tense and visibly terrified throughout, but he makes it. He’s stronger than his fear, and I feel like that was a big learning moment for James’s version of Scorpius.

Another note from that scene (aside from the movement when Scorpius was facing the Dementor, which was again spectacular), was James’s attention to detail from the books. It’s beautiful to see a real fan inhabiting this world. One of the first things you learn about Dementors in the books is their physical effect – the clamminess of the skin, how they make you shaky and weak – and James brought that out so beautifully. Scorpius wiped his forehead as he stumbled away. His legs looked like they could barely hold him. It brought me back to that original description that we get in book three, and I truly appreciated that.

James Phoon is not a splasher when he gets in the lake. Unlike Jonathan, who does his absolute best to drench the first few rows (with Joe’s willing assistance), he was very restrained. The only tidal wave movement came from the hug, which was one of the first bits of interaction I saw between Albus and Scorpius. I’m not really sure if I have a way of describing James and Joe’s Albus and Scorpius friendship aside from that it just worked? It was a seamless relationship, full of just the right amount of judgement, love, and honesty. Joe did a great job of supporting James throughout Part Two, and his role in things was quiet, consistent competence. I imagine that I’d have more to say about impressions of their friendship if I’d seen Part One too – that’s where it’s really established and shines through. Part Two is so much more about jeopardy and building on what’s already been laid down.

Up until the moment when Scorpius came out of the lake I hadn’t seen James’s version as particularly flaily or joyous, but when the adults first came onstage, that was when the sun came out. There was the true joy of Scorpius seeing Harry, Ginny, and Professor McGonagall again. And then there was the first real interaction in the show between Scorpius and his dad. Scorpius’s part of it got more sheepish as it went along, until he was muttering ‘hi, Dad’ almost in shame. James Howard allowed himself a big grin before saying ‘hello, Scorpius’, that was just Draco enough to be counted as in character, but still seemed like a personal reaction to getting to greet James Phoon as Scorpius for the first time. It was a really sweet little moment.

I was excited to see what James brought to the dorm scene. What I was not prepared for was the most intense feels ever. As he ducked down at the foot of the bed (the second time he says Albus’s name), he said ‘ Alboos?’ just the way Samuel used to, and I was not prepared for that sort of emotional attack. Then, when he got back to the bed, I could see him preparing the blanket to drape around himself for ‘bring back Mouldy Voldy and have him torture me’, and he did not disappoint.

One of my favourite things about both the big second covers that we’ve seen – Rosemary and James – were those moments where their cover journey came shining through. With Rosemary there were little bits of Noma and Rakie and Nicola and Franc scattered throughout the performance. With James there were bits of Samuel and Jonathan, even a cheeky little bit of Anthony, and it just highlighted the work and time and observation that had gone into the performance.

The other great part of the dorm scene was the final grand statement of ‘it’s time that Time-Turning became a thing of the past’. There was a little bit of pompousness to James’s Scorpius, and that was used to the most brilliant effect during this line. He straightened his back, presented the Time-Turner away from him, and said the line with such ridiculous grandeur that Albus instantly despaired of him. It was one of the most extra versions of that line I’ve ever seen.

In the Owlery scene, the pompous feeling really came to the fore. James’s Scorpius was very much a Malfoy. He had confidence in himself and in his knowledge. Whereas others have been constantly insecure and unsure of themselves, James’s Scorpius really wasn’t. He knew himself, he was happy with himself, and he knew all the proper ways of doing things – the right spells to use, the right way to destroy a Time-Turner, the theories of how to go about deciding what to do with the Time-Turner – and he was very willing to share that knowledge with Albus. It became a bit of a lecture, in this lovely way. I could imagine Scorpius sitting in the library with Albus and lecturing him on the correct way to write about Transfiguration, for example, and Albus nodding along but ultimately ignoring him and going down his own crazy path.

I don’t know why, but I vividly remember Scorpius’s first scream of pain when Delphi made her Fulgari spell burn the boys’ wrists. My immediate thought was ‘this is going to be a good torture scene. I’m looking forward to this’.

One of my thoughts throughout Part Two was that it was cool to see James Phoon do all the little tricks that only Scorpius gets to do, everything from using the Time-Turner through to the Crucio lean. He didn’t go as wild with the Crucios as I was expecting, but I didn’t mind that. His best moments in the Quidditch Pitch scene weren’t the screaming and shouting, they were the quiet, emotionally intense moments when he was sitting on the ground recovering.

This was a Scorpius who was physically vulnerable, balling himself up small, head down, all tense and tight and – again – visibly terrified. I was constantly struck by how much was going on inside him, that was escaping in flickers across his face despite his best efforts to contain it. He didn’t quite have the Malfoy veneer, but he was giving it his best go.

I don’t think I can write this recap without acknowledging the bizarre Craig-ception that went on throughout this act. Every time James was looking at Craig (Josh in this show) my brain couldn’t quite comprehend it. It first happened during the Voldy timeline (I spent most of that scene giggling about how weird it was), and then again in this scene, which had a much more emotional result.

Scorpius looked so devastated at Craig’s death. He deflated. And he turned his back to the audience and just sort of stared at the body for a bit. There were also moments when he curled up on his side and didn’t seem to want to look at anything. Where Jonathan’s Scorpius in this scene becomes a model of defiance, quite literally standing up to Delphi, James’s Scorpius seemed to get smaller. He was still mentally on it though, questioning Delphi about the prophecy, and I liked how Scorpius and Albus seemed on a level footing in this scene. They felt very together, which carried through into the maze, where they were working as a pair to try and snap Delphi’s magical hold over them.

I vividly remember Scorpius’s reaction to Delphi breaking the Time-Turner. He collapsed right onto the ground, crouching, almost sitting among the shards. There’s something so innocent and desperate about Scorpius sitting in the middle of all that destruction, just staring at it. Albus came over and put a hand on his shoulder to encourage him to his feet.

That little scene also includes one of my favourite echoes in the play. Albus points out to Scorpius that Hogwarts still looks the same, and it’s the one moment where Albus takes courage and hope from Hogwarts but Scorpius doesn’t or can’t. Albus sees Hogwarts through Scorpius’s eyes again, and Scorpius looks too but is practical enough to pull them away, because they can’t be seen there. But that one moment where Albus sees the castle as a potential safe haven is so beautiful and shows such growth.

Act Four

This Act introduced me to my favourite new Scorpius mannerism. James’s Scorpius spent the whole time they were in Godric’s Hollow fiddling with the bottom of the zip on his jacket. It was this constant, nervous little twitch. Most of the time he was just messing with the zip with one hand, but at his most anxious it would be both. There’s something lovely about seeing a classic, clear mannerism like that, at least there was for me. It reminded me of the original handful of Scorpiuses.

There was so much to love in both of James’s Godric’s Hollow scenes. The first is the flailier of the two scenes, and once Scorpius hit peak squeakiness, he never really came back down to earth. In general, James’s Scorpius voice was pretty similar to how he speaks when he’s playing Craig (although perhaps a little less breathy and stuttery). It was pretty standard as Scorpius voices go. But boy could he flail and squeak when he wanted to, and when he did it was utterly glorious. When Lily and James came out of their house for the first time, Scorpius was still so excited about Bathilda Bagshot that Albus had to drag him into cover. Also, he gave the pedant in me a gift, because he said ‘my geekness is a-quivering’, not ‘my geekiness’. I haven’t heard that line said correctly in almost a year, and I was delighted.

In the second of the Godric’s Hollow scenes, Scorpius ended up crouching down right next to Albus for the initial part of their chat. I seem to remember this occasionally happening with Samuel and Theo, and I forgot how intimate it makes the scene feel. There’s something lovely about the boys being at eye level with each other while they talk about what they’re going to do.

James’s ‘Help!’ shouts were surprisingly simple after Jonathan’s usual antics. He definitely went for them though – you could see all the muscles in his neck as he was shouting – and I love how Joe always tries to match and mock the intensity of Scorpius’s shouts.

The further through the show we got, the more little Samuel influences started to come out. There was another one in the Eureka moment, which reminded me of those final shows with Mackley as Albus where the real fireworks came out. We got the slow, crouching steps towards Albus, pointing with every word as he said ‘in your room, in the present’, and then the explosive celebrations of ‘by Dumbledore, I love it!’ Nothing beats a Scorpius participating in the euphoria of that moment, especially opposite Joe’s Albus (who always goes crazy).

When the boys are hovering around the bed, Scorpius was messing with his zip again and looking suitably anxious about the whole thing. This is probably a good point to mention that it was wonderful to focus on Scorpius during this entire Part Two. It’s so rare that I watch him as intensely as I was on Saturday, and I caught lots of lovely little moments, reactions and expressions, that I wouldn’t normally. In this scene, for example, it was fascinating to watch him hold himself back from stopping Albus climbing onto the bed between his parents, and I’m pretty sure he also glanced back either at Albus or at the blanket as he ran off towards the opposite side of the stage. There’s always so much to watch in this play, and I find that I don’t notice that I’m not watching half of it until something changes and draws my attention to it. It was one of the things that I most valued about this performance, how it opened my eyes to Scorpius again.

Everyone loves a Draco and Scorpius hug. I don’t know about anyone else in the theatre, but I for one was so excited about this particular moment that I sat up a bit in my seat in anticipation. It really didn’t disappoint, and it was a strong contrast to what Jonathan normally gives us. Jonathan has taken to running away from Draco (ever since that one show where James McGregor’s Draco terrified Scorpius so much that he had to be coaxed out of the wings), and obviously this year we’ve had the new blocking that means Draco is the one closing the distance between himself and Scorpius. So it was refreshing to see a lovely halfway house between the old and new blocking.

Draco took a few steps towards Scorpius as Scorpius ran at him, then they both ground to a halt and Scorpius deflated, terrified and worried he’d gone too far. Finally Draco delivered his ‘we can hug too’, and Scorpius threw himself into his dad’s arms with all the joy in the world. They were still in their corner of the stage – as in the new blocking – but James brought to the table the way Scorpius used to close the gap, and it became a wonderful, mutual movement towards one another. It’s been a long time since I saw such a joyous version of that hug.

It didn’t stop there either. James Howard did his usual routine of putting a hand on Scorpius’s shoulder and encouraging him to breathe and calm down, but James Phoon responded by having Scorpius put his hand on the underside of Draco’s arm, so they were both holding onto each other. It was such a light, gentle gesture, but it spoke volumes. Once Scorpius had made that initial contact with his dad, he didn’t want to let go.

Some little things from the scenes in St Jerome’s. James Phoon’s Scorpius is genuinely up for volunteering to be Voldemort (compared to Jonathan, whose line about drawing lots is a bid for peace), and that made Albus’s volunteering feel more heartfelt too. Scorpius and Albus caught each other’s eye and had a very brief silent conversation when the adults were talking about transfiguring Harry. When Scorpius and Hermione said ‘you’re not wrong’ together, Draco looked at his son with genuine pride – it was beautiful. In fact, I remember Draco spending a lot of time looking proud of Scorpius in this performance. Sometimes Draco just glows with his love for his son.

During the battle, Scorpius was placed right against the door. It felt like he was a little further from Draco than he usually is, and this was another of those scared Scorpius moments. At the end of the battle, Albus and Scorpius sometimes share a spontaneous hug, which didn’t happen in this performance, but I did see Albus looking around and watching Scorpius to make sure he was okay while the battle was still going on. Albus knew exactly where Scorpius was the whole time, and the second danger was past, he was next to him in a heartbeat.

I was wondering whether we’d get another little Samuel thing at the end of the battle, and we didn’t quite, but what we did get was absolutely fascinating. For those who don’t know, Draco picks up Delphi’s wand when she’s disarmed, and for a long time he’s been handing it to Scorpius to look after once the battle is over. Jonathan just pockets it, but Samuel used to hold it across his palms and stare at it like it was an object of terrifying evil. When James’s Scorpius got it he held it loosely in one hand. It mirrored the way the adults (and Albus) were holding their wands, but while theirs were straight, directly pointed at Delphi, Scorpius’s wasn’t. It was in a position where it could be a threat, but wasn’t quite.

At first I thought it was weird for Scorpius to be using Delphi’s wand for his own – he’s the only person in the scene without a wand to fight with – but then I realised that there was actually something poetic about Scorpius taking the wand that had tortured him and turning it back on the person who’d literally taken him to hell and back. There was also the fact that after everyone else put their wands away (when Harry says they’re not going to kill Delphi), he kept holding his. He’s the last person in the scene holding power over Delphi, and for all his fear and pain, he didn’t drop his guard for a second. It’s a testament to his inner strength and resilience that he could keep fighting, keep his defences, keep holding the source of his own torture as his own weapon, and quietly, secretly, protect everyone around him. I think that’s become one of my favourite moments of the evening, even though it was one that required a little bit more thought – that seems to always be the way with this show, particularly with Cast Three.

And then we got a stark reminder that although James’s Scorpius has that resilience and inner strength, he would far rather be protected. If his dad is there to look after him, he’ll take that option over anything else, and who can blame him? It’s impossible to be strong all the time.

After James’s death, Scorpius already had his face buried in his dad’s chest, and Draco was already rubbing his back to comfort him. It took everything in him to emerge enough to see Lily’s death, and when that happened he broke down and clung to his dad as Draco stroked his hair. Maybe it’s because I’m used to seeing such a tall Scorpius at the moment, but James looked especially small in this scene. Scorpius seemed to fit so well in his dad’s arms. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Scorpius so in need of physical protection in this scene. His dad was his shield. All the fear broke through his walls and he was shaking and unable to watch – everything he’d been keeping inside for the entirety of the two acts burst out, but it was okay because this time there was someone to take care of him.

Scorpius is so obsessed with showing his dad how brave he is that to break down like that takes a huge act of faith, and it shows the transformation of his and Draco’s relationship in such a short space of time. After everything, he must finally trust that his dad knows how brave he is. After all, someone can be exceptionally brave and exceptionally scared all at once, and I think James’s Scorpius exemplifies that more than any other. There were no additional heroics to his portrayal, Scorpius was just surviving, and sometimes that’s the bravest and most defiant thing a person can do.

The penultimate scene was a thing of joy. Flaily Scorpius was back and flailier than ever. He was melting against the bannister, sighing over Rose (which is hear was basically what he did whenever she was around or mentioned throughout the entirety of the play). He also had great fun teasing Albus. The funniest little thing that I’ve never seen before was Scorpius miming being an old lady with a walking stick when he talked about the new potions professor. I always assumed she was just a bit older than Delphi had been – maybe early 30s – but the idea that she’s actually elderly was a hilarious revelation. I would love to see someone get to take this idea and run with it. I should also mention that when Albus shoved Scorpius towards Rose he fell a couple of steps down the stairs before catching himself.

Which brings me onto the final hug. It was drawn out, heartfelt, and just downright beautiful. For a while now, Joe has been having Albus melt into the hug for a few seconds before remembering where he is and what he’s doing and shoving Scorpius away. It was like that with this one, and the fact that James’s Scorpius was relatively short meant that the two of them fit together perfectly. There were several long, blissful seconds before they parted, and when they did, Scorpius seemed particularly unsure about the version of them he had in his head. He was almost waiting for Albus’s approval of his imagination. Which of course Albus gave by way of teasing, and Scorpius ultimately bounced off the stage in happiness.

Secondly, towards the end of the scene, Albus does the unthinkable – he disrespects the blanket. In a lot of portrayals, even Albus acknowledges that the blanket is a sacred object and takes care of it. There was one memorable performance in which Tom Mackley threw the blanket at Jamie Parker so hard that Jamie didn’t manage to catch it and it fell on the floor. The look on Albus’s face was so full of horror that he clearly understood the magnitude of what he’d accidentally done. But with Joe’s Albus, after a point he doesn’t seem to care anymore. It’s just a mouldy blanket after all. 

In the last performance I saw, once Harry got up off the bed and started talking about packing, Albus swung round to take up the whole space, which meant that he stretched his legs out down the length of the bed and right over the top of the blanket. He was essentially sitting on it, and Harry was absolutely livid. If he’d wanted to rile his dad up, he went about it in exactly the right way. 

Hogwarts through the trees

I’ve never seen this before, but in the performance on Thursday night, Albus somehow managed to enter this scene backwards. Normally the boys walk from the back of the stage into position facing forwards, so they see the view open up ahead of them, but in this one it seemed as though Albus was trying to avoid looking. He didn’t see the view until he was right in position beneath the arch, and then he turned round and his reaction was so sudden and so real. It was a burst of every emotion under the sun, hitting him all in that one moment. 

Joe’s expression in this scene is so profoundly beautiful. It’s everything and nothing all at once. Albus is overwhelmed by what he’s seeing, and he understands how stunning it is, and what it means to Scorpius, but his own relationship to the school is so complex that there’s heartbreak in there too. He wishes Hogwarts could be so uncomplicatedly beautiful to him as it is to Scorpius, but it’s not, and that really hurts. There are tears in his eyes, and he looks so small and sad and inadequate, but of course to Scorpius he’s anything but inadequate, even if he doesn’t realise it yet. Joe is a master of saying a thousand different things with one simple, restrained expression. 

Staircase ballet

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do anything that revolutionary character-wise in this scene, so it was actually a surprise to see Joe suddenly do something so different. He’s mentioned before that there are times he’s found the show’s blocking quite restrictive, and I wonder if now the directors’ attention is elsewhere he’s finally getting to show us the things he’s never been allowed to do before. 

He’s always got to the top of the first staircase and acted like he’s found an unexpected dead end, that’s nothing new (although I love how Albus’s path through the school is constantly blocked and thwarted, while the staircases take Scorpius wherever he wants to go – there’s a beautiful metaphor for their relationships with Hogwarts there). What was new was the moment when he ducks through the space beneath where Scorpius is sitting. 

Albus normally moves straight through that space and on up the stairs, but in this one he stayed under there and hid. He peeked out a couple of times to see if Scorpius was gone, clearly trying to avoid him, and when he realised that Scorpius wasn’t moving he sprinted straight up the stairs, like he was running away. 

It was all perfectly timed to the music still, and it was so interesting to see the choreography used to tell a new element of the story. Joe’s Albus’s story has always been that he’s trying to avoid and hide from Scorpius, he won’t even look at him, but this was a new extent. A new layer. 

Library scene 

There are two things to mention in this scene too. The first actually relates heavily to something in another scene. In the Act Four scene in Harry’s office, when Draco says ‘if its takes centuries, we must find our sons’, James has started grabbing the Time-Turner and getting ready to go, finger on the dial, about to search all of time for his son before Harry stops him. And in this scene, that was exactly what Albus tried to do too. 

The second he said ‘you’ve still got the Time-Turner, right?’ and grabbed it out of the bag, he went running across the room with it, finger on the dial, ready to go and get Cedric and Rose back. It changed the wrestling from being about pure ownership of the Time-Turner to being about Scorpius trying to stop Albus from doing something stupid there and then.

The second thing also requires a bit of background explanation. I’ve been furiously trying to figure out Joe’s library and torture scenes for the longest time, and it turns out that once you’ve understood one, you’ve understood them both. He explained to me at stage door that his Albus is a strategist. He doesn’t get scared, he just thinks – he suppresses his emotions in favour of coming up with a plan. So when you see him shutting down and not responding in the moment to Scorpius’s speech or to Delphi’s torture, it’s because Albus is five steps ahead and choosing to delay his emotions for another time. 

More on the torture scene later, but in the library scene he shuts down the second he sees Polly leaving the room. Of course he’s listening to what Scorpius is saying, he’s taking it on board, but he’s aware that McGonagall is going to show up at any second and there’s no time to get emotional. He can’t fix Scorpius’s problems there and then; the top priority is to stop them getting separated again, and that’s exactly what he does. Only when they emerge from under the cloak does Albus finally respond, and what a response. 

In the last show it was actually the beginning of Albus’s apology that was most fascinating. He separated the thoughts about the cloak into two separate instances, so it became both a commentary on his relationship with James and a guilty admission of his own problems. The first part, from ‘Yes I stole this from James’ to ‘his trunk combination is the date he got his first broom’ was joking, mocking his brother, and it finished with a ‘how thick can you get?’ sort of ‘duh’. Then there was a long pause before the second part: ‘I found the cloak made avoiding bullies easier’, which was said so quietly, reluctantly almost, like he didn’t want to admit that he’d had to hide. Maybe he was embarrassed to talk about his life being rubbish after everything Scorpius just said...

Torture scene

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that there’s one line that unlocks Joe’s delivery of the torture scene: ‘The flaw in the Time-Turner, the five minute rule, we do everything we can to run down the cloak’. In that performance it wasn’t a desperate half-baked suggestion being flung out, it was a strategy that Albus had been thinking through since he realised what Delphi was going to do, and he was counting on it to work. 

Everything that comes before that – Scorpius being tortured, Craig’s death, Delphi’s jeering – is all something that Albus can’t bring himself to engage with, because he’s focusing on the goal, which is for him and Scorpius to survive the preamble, get Delphi into the maze, and then lead her a merry dance for five minutes so they get timed out and she can’t use that task to save Cedric. Once again he’s five steps ahead. He has to be. That’s how he’s going to survive this hell, and more importantly it’s how Scorpius is going to survive it.

It isn’t until the moment when Delphi out-manoeuvres him and smashes the Time-Turner that he’s out of control. That’s when the emotion finally kicks in, when suddenly he has no plan at all, his dad is suddenly in horrible danger, and he and Scorpius are lost. 

I’ve found over the last year that if Joe’s not delivering what you expect emotionally from Albus in a situation, there is always, 100% of the time, a really good reason for that. The tricky thing is finding it, but when you do? It’s the most rewarding and exhilarating thing in the world. 

Harry and Ginny find the blanket message

This may be strange to say, but this has truly become one of my favourite scenes in the show with this cast (this and the hospital wing scene have both been unexpectedly gorgeous this year). 

The reason I adore this scene so much is because it’s such a clear assertion from Albus of how he feels about his dad. It’s the moment when Albus decides that he’s going to reach out and repair their relationship, come hell or high water. 

‘We’re starting with Dad’ is the most stunning line. It would be so easy, as Scorpius suggests, to write Harry’s name on the blanket, but Albus is absolutely determined that it’s going to be Dad. Because Harry is his dad, his dad who he loves and misses and wants so desperately. It’s Albus offering the first hand of peace across time and space, from Godric’s Hollow in 1981 to his own bedroom in 2020. There’s something so powerful about that.

The other powerful little gesture in this scene is in a similar vein. Whenever Joe’s Albus sits on a bed, he flips the pillow up so it rests against the bedstead, every single time, and in the last show I noticed that he did it here too. I couldn’t work out at first why that had such an impact, but then @ohscorbus mentioned that Albus doesn’t go back to his room after he runs away in the blanket scene. In fact no one goes in until Harry and Ginny do on Hallow’s Eve to find the blanket, and when they do, Albus is with them, if not in body then in spirit. 

It’s another little act of ownership, it feels like. The only thing that’s been touched in that room is the blanket, which is still at this point very much Harry’s possession – I doubt Albus feels an ownership over it, especially after how he treated it – so the first person to move anything is Albus, across space and time, and it’s to make the space more comfortable for himself. It’s one of those little things that he’d do to take ownership of the room if he were really there and planning to sit on the bed and do homework or whatever. 

Albus taking up his own space, taking ownership of it, inhabiting it, is so important a step for him. He’s uncomfortable and unhappy everywhere it seems, and little things like that feel like a step on the journey towards feeling better.

The penultimate scene