The magic of "Harry Potter" has brought more young fans to the London Theatre

LONDON, April 9 (Xinhua) -- The magic of "Harry Potter" has brought more young theater fans to the London theatre

Xinhua News Agency reporter Liang Xizhi

The magic of "Harry Potter" once again conquered Britain on the evening of the 9th, but this time not in bookstores or cinemas, but on the stage of the Lawrence Oliver Award, the highest award for British theatre and musical theatre - the stage play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" successfully won a record 9 awards, becoming a rare miracle in the history of British theatre in recent years, and also attracting many young fans for the London Theatre.

Written by The British writer J. Scott Ｋ． Rowling's "Harry Potter" fantasy literary series has been translated into 75 languages, published in more than 200 countries and territories, ranked among the world's best-selling novels, and the film adaptation has also set box office records many times, becoming one of the highest-grossing film series in the world.

Unlike the first seven books in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a stage play staged at the West End Theatre in London, divided into two parts, and officially performed on 30 July 2016. The story focuses on harry potter's struggles and life course in the British magical society, and describes a series of stories that happened with his second son, Albus Severus Potter. Since the performance, the theater has been full, and it is difficult to find a ticket, and by the beginning of 2018, the pre-sale tickets have been sold out.

However, the show's creators admit that if it weren't for the fame of "Harry Potter" itself, the show might not have been able to make it so brilliant and attract so many viewers, especially the younger generation, to buy tickets to watch.

British actor Jamie Parker won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his role as adult Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, he said that if it were not for the great success of the "Harry Potter" series before, the criticism and doubts about the show might have buried it long ago.

Parker said the show managed to attract a lot of audiences, including the younger generation who are usually reluctant to go to the theater, many of whom are big fans of the Harry Potter series and were drawn to buy tickets to watch by Harry Potter's charm and storyline.

In the era of mobile Internet, traditional drama seems to be somewhat out of place, and it is facing the challenge of new technologies and new entertainment methods. Jack Thorne, who co-wrote the show with Rowling, said: "We're competing with Playstation, Sony's home console, and to win, we have to succeed in attracting console players and bringing them into the theater. ”

Thorne said that about 75 percent of the audience who came to the theater to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child were new fans, who watched the show and then watched other shows, and then many of them fell in love with the theater.

The new Harry Potter play was one of the highlights of London's West End last year, and together with signature plays such as Aladdin and Funny Girl, it brought a lot of money to london's West End. Statistics show that in 2016, the box office revenue of London's West End Theatre reached 1. The £5.3 billion (1.3 billion yuan) increased by 8% over 2015, reversing the 4% decline in the previous year and increasing theatre attendance by 2%.

Director John Tiffany said he had taken the harry potter and the cursed child to New York to prepare for the next step in the Broadway theater, which is expected to officially be staged on Broadway in the spring of 2018. Whether the magic of "Harry Potter" will cross the Atlantic Ocean and attract more young fans into the theater, we will wait and see.