POTTER FOR BEGINNERS

When I saw that one of the plays at the Fringe Festival was "Potted Potter", I knew that I had to be there. An reduced version of the first 6 books in only one hour. It sounded like fun (although my dear siblings maintain that it is more of a "nerdy" thing. They kept calling me "friqui" all the time).

So, there I went climbing again the road into the Plaisance area. The queue was pretty bad at this point, and I still had more than half an hour to wait to get into the theatre. Lots of kids, but also grown-ups and an american group all dressed-up as the HP characters (I forgot to take a picture, so sorry about that ...). There are a few bars in the area, so you won´t go thirsty while waiting. As I was on my own, I was able to get a very decent place near one of the Quidditch loops. There were a lot of kids, true, but there were also many grown-ups as myself, both in groups and alone.

The whole thing is advertised as a parody. It is a bit of a panto and the two guys doing it ( I think they are "Blue Peter" presenters) are quite funny. It´s not, certainly, something for people who take their love of the Potter canon to extremes (the group dressed as wizards came out grumbling about it). But if you like silly jokes,you will be able to enjoy it, even if you are not really a Pottermaniac. They try to reduce the 6 books to one hour, with only two actors because one of them spent all the money they had for casting (get inside joke about all the british acting class luminaries appearing in th Potter films) in a marvellous dragon for the 4th book. In the meantime, one of the guys is supposedly reading the last book and will tell all at the end. So, the audience is divided between Gryffindor and Slytherin, the archenemies houses at Hogwarts. We got two warthogs representing the castle ( did you get the really bad joke?), we got questions about how could it be that Dumbledore, the greatests wizard of our time, went into teaching, we got a plastic dragon ( and no CGIs were used), we got an analysis of "Snape, good or evil?", we were informed that the last book was "a blood bath !!! ". There was a Quidditch game and Gryffindor score 1 goal, and although Slytherin caught the Snitch (a giant yellow bird), the actors decided to cheat and give the win to Gryffindor (first time anyone had gotten a quaffle through the hoops). Slytherin got drenched in water, for losing, and Gryffindor too, because nobody likes smug winners. Add to that an arousing rendition of "I will survive" ( with a Voldemort in red little horns ), and it was really, really good fun.

My next play was in an hour. I had bought a ticket for "Nijinsky´s last dance" on a whim that morning, and I had to walk down and up to the New Town, and find the Assembly place where it was being represented. It wasn´t far away, but it was a bit of walk, and I had to forget about sitting down for a coffee on my way. A frappucino at Starbucks had to be, while I was humming "I will survive".