Hey guys,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be
discussing JK Rowling, everyone’s favourite aspect of Harry Potter (The Cursed Child)
*kidding*, and just how related the play and author actually are.
The Cursed Child comes under continuous scrutiny from Harry Potter fans worldwide, mainly for
its disregard for traditional Harry Potter canon. Though Rowling has affirmed that the
play should be accepted as part of the canon- most fans aren’t having any of this. This
is for a couple of reasons, first of all-the storyline truly upsets our perceptions of
the traditional Harry Potter universe. The notion that Voldemort could have a child when
he was born entirely devoid of certain emotions, is just one example of the things that The
Cursed Child did that didn’t sit well with fans. The next big issue for most fans is
that Rowling didn’t write the play all on her own- and because other people had influence
on how the play and story would turn out, it seems to be the general consensus among
fans that it can’t truly be canon. On the front cover, it very clearly reads:
Based on an original new story by
J.K. Rowling
John Tiffany & Jack Thorne
The Cursed Child is marketed as the eighth story- the story of the children of the characters
that we grew up with. The events of the cursed child occur 19 years after the events of the
Deathly Hallows, and follows Harry Potter- who is now head of the department of magical
law enforcement at the ministry of magic, and his younger son, Albus Potter, who’s
just about to embark on his own journey at Hogwarts. But, rather than being made in to
a film adaptation, the Cursed Child is a two part play - and was written to be a play.
So, given the obvious differences between this work and JK Rowling’s previous work,
and the fact that she co-wrote it, just how involved WAS Rowling with the plot and character
development? Was this a product of Jack Thorne & John Tiffany? Or JK Rowling?
JK Rowling initially never wanted to make a stage adaptation of her work - it wasn’t
for her, but producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender were eventually able to successfully
pitch the idea to Rowling:
“Over the years I have received countless approaches about turning Harry Potter into
a theatrical production, but Sonia and Colin’s vision was the only one that really made sense
to me, and which had the sensitivity, intensity and intimacy I thought appropriate for bringing
Harry's story to the stage. After a year in gestation it is exciting to see this project
moving on to the next phase. I’d like to thank Warner Bros. for their continuing support
in this project.”
And what this tells me is that the whole idea- and a large portion of the story, were put
in place before Rowling was even involved. From what Rowling has revealed in interviews-
it seems like the original idea was created by Jack Thorne, John Tiffany, Sonia Friedman,
and Colin Callender rather than the author that produced the works of our childhood.
Sonia Friedman takes full ownership of the idea in an interview:
Why a play? Was it J. K. Rowling’s idea?
Sonia Friedman: It was absolutely Colin’s and my idea. We knew that many other producers
had approached her and she had rejected their pitches. But that’s because they were all
ideas about musicals or arena spectacles. We went to her with the simple idea of a straight
play. We were clear we didn’t want to adapt a novel, and we suggested exploring how Harry,
an orphan, would cope as an adult and a parent.
Colin Callender: We went up to Edinburgh four years ago and sat in a boardroom and talked
about fathers and parenting for a while. We said we felt she had created a fully dimensional
world, and there were things about the characters she hadn’t revealed. We didn’t hear anything
for a bit, then got the call to say, “Let’s go to the next stage.”
When Rowling was asked WHY she changed her mind, she said the following:
J.K. Rowling: Meeting Sonya Friedman, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany changed my mind. I
knew there was other material there, I gave it all to them and they've turned out the
play.
From there, the seeds were planted, and planning began to produce the play that is the Cursed
Child. When Tiffany and Thorne were asked about sharing story credit with Rowling, they
said the following:
John Tiffany: Jo Rowling was incredibly generous. When we met to talk about the play, she asked,
“What do you think the Harry Potter stories are about?” I said, “Learning to deal
with death and grief.” There was something in her eye — I thought, we didn’t say
it’s about transformation or magic or flying on brooms, and we’re on the right track.
Thorne: We all met in Edinburgh and as the day developed, we knew we would take the epilogue
of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” as a starting point.
JK Rowling was very clear from the beginning that she was not a playwright, and wouldn’t
be involved with actually writing the play. The play was to be written by Jack Thorne
& John Tiffany, and that was always the plan. However, this doesn’t mean that she wasn’t
involved at all, and I think that fans have perhaps disassociated Rowling from the play
a little bit more than they should have. Rowling was still very much involved with plot and
character development- she didn’t entirely hand off the story and give them total creative
freedom-she was still a voice that had a significant influence on the play. When Thorne & Tiffany
were originally given the go ahead, they met Rowling in her writing room and strung together
the narrative for the story, together, right then and there.
I told John and Jack what I thought had happened to Harry, Ron and Hermione in later years,
explained how focused I was on Harry’s son Albus, who’d been given the burden of not
one, but three legendary names, and together we created the story that Jack wrote.
At this point, Thorne & Tiffany got to writing.
From this point onward, they would continually touch base with Rowling to ensure that the
story meshed well with the universe that she had created. Additionally, Rowling had considerable
veto power over the story, and if something didn’t sit well with her then it was not
going to end up in the final product. This is something that I feel is glossed over by
many fans- Rowling still had a massive amount of influence in the story.
Thorne was a long time superfan of Harry Potter and it has been expressed that he had ‘anxiety
about treading on such hallowed ground’- fair enough.
“I had a big advantage – my first reader was John, and my second was Jo. If you’ve
got the person out of whose head these characters came, then you go, ‘OK, I can make some
choices. If they’re the wrong ones, she’ll say.’ And she did. I’m pretty sure I could
have been fired at any time.”
Whenever I mention The Cursed Child in videos it seems to get a lot of hate, and this is
where I don’t feel quite as strongly as some other people. Do I view The Cursed Child
on the same level as the traditional Harry Potter story? Not even close. But, do I appreciate
that The Cursed Child is a genuine attempt to continue the story made by fans working
alongside Rowling herself? Certainly.
The story wasn’t just handed off to them with no questions asked, for years and years
Rowling consistently denied proposals to create stage adaptations of her novels.
For ten years I said no to proposals to adapt Harry for the stage, usually as a musical,
and using the existing books. So when I met producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender,
I wasn’t sure what I was going to hear. I only knew that they wanted to do something
new, which was intriguing, because I had no desire to go endlessly back over old ground.
So, while the Cursed Child is constantly scrutinized for veering away from the traditional Harry
Potter canon, we do need to remember that Rowling did have a ‘role’ in it’s creation,
and if something truly veered far enough away from the universe that we know and love, she
could have at any time vetoed it. There are some hard pills to swallow in The Cursed Child,
and things that I agree, just don’t seem to work with everything else that we’ve
been introduced to, but as a standalone production, it should be appreciated. I’m just not convinced
that it’s cut from the same cloth as everything else. However you feel about it, I get it,
it’s quite a controversial topic.
And that’s it for this video! What do YOU Guys think of the cursed child? Can you appreciate
it for what it is on its own? Or does it serve as too much of an affront on Harry Potter?
Let me know down in the comment section below
UNTIL NEXT TIME
YER A WIZARD ARRY