As legions of Potterheads raided bookstores to get their hands on a prized copy of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, the play based on this script opened to rare rave reviews last weekend at the Palace Theatre in London. With a flurry of 5-star reviews — The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish conceded that he had not seen anything “directly comparable” in all his reviewing years — the performance has all the aplomb and overwhelming grandeur of theatre. With its runtime of over five hours, it is split into two parts.

Conceived, like many other great literary ideas, by JK Rowling, the play was written by Jack Thorne. Rowling, playwright Thorne, and director John Tiffany collaborated on this project for two years. Although it is a much more complicated story splitting into multiple alternate-reality narratives, the play is essentially like the Harry Potter books: the prose has the same lyrical, introspective quality, the characters are just as masterfully and lovingly crafted.

The script follows the morose Albus Severus Potter, toiling in the shadows of his iconic father, seemingly falling short of his family’s expectations. He finds an unlikely ally and friend in Scorpius Malfoy, the son of Harry’s arch-enemy. Fantastic and charming, Scorpius is a revelation. Together, they go on adventures much like Harry and Ron. Old graves are dug up, accepted realities are thwarted, and someone’s possible return is in the air too.

The way the drama is directed, to bring one of the most vast and self-contained magical universes to life, without the benefits afforded by literature and film, is unlike anything viewers have seen. It is hardly surprising that tickets are sold out till May 2017. But more than anything, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child is a work of wonder, and love. With this, comes the befitting end of Potter’s journey.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, August 7th, 2016