Potted Potter

It’s a purposeful stupidity to be sure, something akin to $500 blue jeans. Potted Potter began as a piece of street theater performed before crowds of Potter fanatics waiting in line to purchase the sixth book, meant to condense the first five into a five-minute show. It has since added the last two books and an hour more of content, but the requisite style for such reduced theater — think The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) — remains, the props are small and the acting is huge.

Turner, who we are told is the resident Potter expert, enters reading one of the books. Clarkson joins him, betraying his ignorance for the books when he reveals the set he procured for the production: a haunted house coffin, a beach scene with “Forbidden Forest” spray-painted over it, and a wardrobe to Narnia. Since Clarkson decided to splurge on a dragon effect for book four rather than hire any other actors, it falls on him to play every character while Turner takes on the role of the boy wizard himself. Clarkson jumps headfirst into his task with ridiculous abandon.

His Voldemort is the devil incarnate, Ron Weasley is a ginger chav, and his Hermione perhaps once held a position on the East German track-and-field team. When not in character, he’s broadly grinning, big blue eyes aglow, occasionally laughing at his own jokes. He mugs for the audience, ad-libbing if something has gone awry with their shoestring budget props, or to poke fun at a member of the audience. Turner is the straight man to Clarkson’s clown. It certainly helps that there is such a height difference between them. They’re like a latter-day Laurel and Hardy, but 100% British.

More importantly, the lucky little children whose parents can afford the $79.99 per ticket are going to have a good time. $39.99 nosebleed seats are also available, but you won’t be invited to play Quidditch. Either way, they’ll likely rave about the show for days afterward.