Potted potter
by Dumbitwas on 11/12/13Balboa Theatre - San DiegoRating: 1 out of 5Silly and hard to hear at times. It was not worth the cost.

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Talk about magic!
British comedy actors Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner have distilled all 4,200 pages of J. K. Rowling's seven Harry Potter novels into one brilliantly hilarious 70-minute show. Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience is a lovably loopy two-person performance in which a Potter know-it-all teams up with a rebellious Harry newbie to create a show about -- you guessed it -- Harry Potter.
Clarkson and Turner conceived the show in 2005 as a five-minute sidewalk synopsis to amuse customers queued up for Rowling's sixth Harry novel. They expanded it to an hour the following year and opened at Edinburgh's Zoo Southside. European tours ensued, and in 2012 Potted Potter was nominated for two Olivier Awards, the highest honor in British theater. The show made its off-Broadway debut the same year and has since toured all over the United States and the world. After opening in 2018, the family-friendly Las Vegas production won Best of Last Vegas Awards for Best New Production and Best Value Show.
One actor channels a bookish Harry in Potted Potter while another plays every other character -- including Ron and Hermione, Draco Malfoy, Snape, the Weasleys, Sirius Black, Mad-Eye Moody, Dumbledore and, of course, He Who Must Not Be Named -- with wild abandon. Loads of wigs and other goofy props are employed in a nonstop laugh fest that also features a fire-breathing dragon, countless costume changes, brilliant songs, a plethora of props and even a Quidditch match encouraging audience participation (but no brooms, alas).
Accessible to Potter freaks and newbies alike, Potted Potter blends slapstick in the Laurel & Hardy vaudeville tradition with the wildly witty dialogue associated with Monty Python's Flying Circus. "Potting" is a British term for "the art of summarizing something into a digestible form," and, like all the best parodies, Clarkson and Turner's Harry experience is both splendid spoof and heartfelt homage.
Silly and hard to hear at times. It was not worth the cost.
Potted Potter was not Broadway quality and definitely not worth $99.
It was all over the place. There were some funny moments, but there were more moments that were just , eh.
Although I am an adult with grown children, I enjoyed this play. It is very well thought out. And funny. It is however, a play geared towards children, consider the source! So if you enjoy silly humor, and hearing children laughing out loud, you will like this play. There is some ad-libbing which is always fun.
Both my wife & I are avid fans of all the Potter books & films, so we had to see Potted Potter! The 2 brits were very entertaining & we laughed a lot! But cramming all that material into 70 minutes meant some parts had to be glossed over. Also I think some of the humor was missed by our American friends. (We are both British) That being said It was a very entertaining & worth seeing.
Nothing witty or funny in this show, just imbecilic. I regret wasting the time and money.
can't believe i spent this much money on something this amateurish.
Extremely funny and we love the action and humor. Actors were great and the script was solidly funny. This is for any one who enjoyed the Rawling's books no matter age should love this rendition.
Potted Potter claims it will cover all seven Harry Potter Books in 90 minutes. As hard as it is to believe, it might have been better to do it in 60 minutes. It got a bit draggy and repetitive at about the hour mark. That said, there's a lot of audience participation and laughs to be had. Well worth seeing.
A fun show from start to finish - James and Delme performed in San Diego and it was entertaining from first minute to last, a live mad-cap kids TV show. Great audience participation, and all the children in attendance enjoyed every moment.
My husband and I have read all of the HP books with our kids and we were very excited to see Potted Potter. We were very disappointed in the production, We did not find it funny at all, more slapstick and not at all what we expected. Pretty lame.
I was so excited to hear the show was coming to town and it lived up to all my expectations. I was laughing so hard my tummy hurt. Such a great show I highly recommend it to everyone who is a Harry Potter fan. :)
The 80 minute ply could have been boiled down to 30 minutes. Fifteen minutes were spent having the audience toss a beach ball around. The actors (and I use the term loosely) seemed to be having a lot of fun. I think it was because they enjoyed bilking us out of the cost of our over priced seats. Too corny. Too long. Fair acting. The kids who went on stage were obviously actors and so their performance didn't seem genuine. I can't recommend it to anyone. The guy next to me was texting the entire time. Normally this would annoy me, but I felt it was justified.
If you are a Harry Potter fan you will probably enjoy this show. It was very funny in parts but kind of silly and way overpriced. I would have enjoyed it more if the tickets had not been so expensive.
We saw this on Friday and had the best time. I laughed so hard it actually hurt. When the show was over, I couldn't believe it, the time went by so fast.
We thought this show was hilarious! i laughed out loud the entire show. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 is the price of tickets. I thought $80 was a little pricey for an hour and half of supper funny harry potter stuff… but we had a great night!
Potted Potter is a 2 actor satire of the Harry Potter series of books with homage to The Hobbit and The Tales of Narnia. The satire format was template for this type of performance. Thus the program started slowly and predictably. My initial reaction was "Oh, dear, I am going to be bored out of my mind. Why are people laughing at this?" However, as the performance progressed, the humor improved and, by the end of the show, we were roaring with laughter right along with everyone else.
Show was mediocre, mildly amusing. I really do not think kids found it that funny.
Not funny. Couldn't wait for it to be over. My 12 year old daughter (who is an avid HP fan and has read the books multiple times) and I were neither amused nor entertained.
This was quite an enjoyable experience. The two characters are funny and work well off each other. The pace is fast, and you really need to listen to catch everything going on. I enjoyed this play.