Potted Potter is hilarious!

We got a chance to see Potted Potter the week before Christmas, and I've been meaning to write about it.   The show is hilarious, and well worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of Harry Potter.

As you might remember from our London sojourn we are big Harry Potter fans.

 If you are not a fan-boy or girl, you will still have a good time, as long as you know a little bit about Harry Potter.  I think even if you know absolutely nothing about Harry Potter, you will think it's funny, but you will have a really weird idea about what's going on in the book.

The show is delightful and fun and goofy.  There are two characters in the show Dan and Jeff.  At the start of the show Jeff is reading one of the books attentively on the stage, and Dan is endeavoring to shake everybody's hand in the audience. Once the show actually begins, it becomes clear that Jeff's mission is to tell the audience the story of the books, and Dan is along as Jeff's more trouble than he's worth helper.   Along the way, Jeff is bound for disappointment, as Dan manages to "help" in ways that frustrate Jeff no end, and like any good clown show, the difference between what is aimed for and what is achieved is where a lot of the comedy comes in.

Dan and Jeff have a great working chemistry.  Jeff hits just the right tones as an earnest fan wanting to share his love, and Dan manages to be stupid, cunning, charming, deceitful, mischievous, and innocent all at once.   Dan does most of the heavy lifting in the comedy department, but without Jeff, it would not be meaningful or significant.  They play well off of each other, and they clearly improvise at moments (as there were several moments where the actors started laughing and cmomenting on their improvisations.  It's all in good fun, and they work very smoothly together.

Dan in the pre-show shaking everybody's hand.  Here he holds an invisible wand.

Here my son and I pose in front of the marquee also holding invisible wands.  He also brought his Gryffindor robes,
but declined to wear them in the theatre.  Probably wise.

The show started as a street show and has since progressed to the stage.   There are props, and while they are kind of goofy and fun, but they are mostly inconsequential.  There is a large toy train that represents the Hogwarts Express, and while it's nice they have it, it's really inconsequential.  The real story and the real comedy is between Jeff and Dave and of course the cast of characters that they present.   I don't want to spoil the jokes, but my son (who is a big fan of Harry Potter) was laughing out loud for a good 50 out of the 80 minutes of the show (the show is 80 minutes long-- 10 minutes or so of prologue, followed by 70 minutes of sending J.K. Rowlings to her grave prematurely and making her roll around in it.)

Here's a promo video from their run 2 years ago in Chicago in 2015.  As far as I can tell, the show hasn't changed appreciably.  (Dan is the one in the wigs)  This definitely doesn't give away a lot, and shows some great interaction between Dan and Jeff!

I do have a small warning:  if you are a superfan of the books/movies, it's possible for you to take Umbrage with some of the choices here.  Although they do a pretty good job of mentioning major plot points of the books, they miss whole parts, of which Dolores Umbrage is one.  (See what I did there?) They also don't talk about the centaurs, Peter Pettigrew is mentioned once, Hagrid is given short shrift, and a bunch of other characters (poor Buckbeak) are not even mentioned once.  In fact, what they don't talk about in the show probably outnumbers what they do talk about!  Ultimately however, none of that matters.  The joy and fun of working together and making the audience laugh uprariously trumps any minor imperfections.

Tickets are on sale now through January 21 when it closes.  (Also please note, that the last couple of weeks there are only weekend shows, so see it early!)  Tickets start at $25.  The show is playing at the Broadway Playhouse in dowtownn Chicago.

Find out more at http://www.broadwayinchicago.com/show/potted-potter-2017/

or  http://www.pottedpotter.com/

Travelogue: London (part 5) The Making of Harry Potter

Our 6 day trip to London with our 8 year old was permeated with Harry Potter references.

OUR LONDON TRIP This post is part of the travelogue of our London Trip 2017. If you'd like to read the posts in chronological order they are below. Part 1:Travelogue London: Arrival Part 2: Travelogue London: The Tower of London/Golden Hind/Play That Goes Wrong Part 3: Travelogue London: Hampton Court Palace Part 4: Travelogue London:  Buckingham, Hamley's, Posh Tea, and an Old Enemy Part 5: Travelogue London: The Making of Harry Potter (coming soon) Part 6: Travelogue London: 48 hours of very hard travel by train.

We of course, visited King's Cross to gaze (along with about a million other people) at the wonders of Platform 9 3/4.  Every Doubledecker bus was a potential Nightbus.  We saw a large black stray dog and wondered if it was Sirius Black.

Even when we went out to suburban London to visit our cousins, my son wondered if we were near where the Dursley's lived.

We unfortunately could not get tickets (or quite frankly spend the money or the 9 hours) to watch the West End show of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (can't wait for it to come to Chicago or New York!) but the be all and end all of our trip was our visit to The Making of Harry Potter.

This attraction, about an hour by bus from Victoria Cross on the outskirts of London, is a tour through the actual studio where Warner Brothers shot all of the Harry Potter movies-- in fact, while we were there, we were informed that in a building we didn't go into they were currently shooting Fantastic Beasts II.

In the great hall, they have models of some of the teachers in their costumes.  (Not real actors!)

The studio has been since turned into a booming tour industry.  We were just a few of the thousands of tourists who attend every day.

My son was so excited to get on Hagrid's
motorbike (with sidecar)

Unlike the Harry Potter worlds at Universal, there are no rides to go on here.  Everything is related to the movies and how the movies were made.  That's not to say there wasn't interactivity.  There was plenty.


You could push a button and see Dolores Umbridge's pink sweater start to smolder.

In another area, you could try your hand at getting a broom to rise up to your hand (SPOILER ALERT:  It's not real magic.

 They have a hydraulic lift cleverly hidden behind the actor, and an operator whose job it is to raise and lower the broom.)

There are spiders that pop out at you in the Forbidden Forest (and for the arachnophobes, there is a spider free route), and you can open and close The Marauder's Map in a very cool visual display.

You can even get (for an additional fee) greenscreened into riding a broom during a Quidditch match!

Here's the video of Umbridge's smoking jacket.

Designs of the Whomping Willow and the Flying Car.
It turns out that the whomping willow only had one arm that actually moved.

The Gleaming Castle. It's a model, but when they shoot it, it looks enormous!

During the course of the tour, you can get a passport to get a stamp through each area of the exhibition, and there's also a number of Golden snitches throughout the exhibition that you are supposed to find.  There's no real reward for doing any of those things, but it's clever and fun.

The Golden Egg.

The thing is that most remarkable about The Making of Harry Potter is the explanations by some of the creatives about how they made all of the objects.  There is a multi-room video tour of how some of the props got made, multiple quotes from people about different areas, a life size version of the flying car and the Gringotts train car, and tons of other stuff.

Understanding how they made Hagrid seem so big for example, or the secrets behind how they staged all those Hogwarts flyovers was astonishing.

We were there for 3 hours, and while we saw a lot of stuff, we didn't see it all.

One of my favorite moments is the reveal of the Hogwarts Exterior

 (THIS IS A MILD SPOILER ALERT)

After you enter into the exhibition for the first time, there is a 12 or so minute movie about the Harry Potter Experience.  After the movie, the screen lifts up to reveal the door to Hogwart's Castle.

It's breathtaking when it happens, and it felt truly like a magical experience.  The doors opened magically to reveal the enormous Great Hall.  They didn't have the animated sorting hat, but it was just amazing.  You get about 20 minutes to take in all of the details of the Great Hall before they move you along so that the next group can experience that same magical moment.

They use perspective to make big people look smaller

As you walk through the rest of the exhibit, each of the sets and set pieces are grouped together, so you see the boys dormitory at Gryffindor, one of the magic shops, or even the train station.

If you've been to Universal (as we have) you'll know that the attention to detail there was (and is) superb, and they've kept up that same attention at this attraction.  You really feel like you are in the Forbidden Forest, or at the Leaky Cauldron, or in Snape's Potion classroom.  (Which makes sense, as these are the film sets!)

If you've got a Harry Potter fan in your household, I think that visiting the Making of Harry Potter is a must.  You should definitely book in advance, as tickets are often sold out.  Our bus over there was completely full, so unless you are driving, you should consider booking with one of the bus tour companies.

Buy tickets directly: https://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/
Book bus directly:  https://www.goldentours.com/warner-bros-harry-potter-studio-tour-london

Occasionally Living Social London or Groupon London have deals on this tour, so check it out as well.

Here are some additional pictures (I took over 150 pictures while I was there, so I am not posting all of them.)

Snape's potion room (where the potions stir themselves!)

Slughorn's chair along with a design for it.

A giant model of Hogwarts allowed them to do flyovers for all of the owl segments.

Placard about the Triwizard cup and what the cup should look like

I have always been in love with all of the various signage of Harry Potter.  They do a great job with posters of the world.  Here are a few.

The actual Philosopher's stone.

The reveal of the Great Hall.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  Keep your eyes open here!

Travelogue: London! (Part 1): Arrival

We have had an action packed couple of days in London, part of our great European adventure.  We've got four more days here, and from here we go to Barcelona for 3 weeks while my wife is teaching there at a new business school!)

OUR LONDON TRIP This post is part of the travelogue of our London Trip 2017. If you'd like to read the posts in chronological order they are below. Part 1:Travelogue London: Arrival Part 2: Travelogue London: The Tower of London/Golden Hind/Play That Goes Wrong Part 3: Travelogue London: Hampton Court Palace Part 4: Travelogue London:  Buckingham, Hamley's, Posh Tea, and an Old Enemy Part 5: Travelogue London: The Making of Harry Potter (coming soon) Part 6: Travelogue London: 48 hours of very hard travel by train.

Our bags.  Over 200 lbs of luggage for 3 people!

Packing the morning we were to leave was a little eventful, as the suitcase we bought for our son for this flight (brand new, never used) broke its zipper as we tried to close it.  So much for planning.  We fortunately had a suitcase in reserve and managed to fit everything in.  We are gone for four weeks, so we have a lot of stuff.  The weight limit on international is 23 kilos, and our bags weighed in at 23, 23, and 21.9.  (23 kilos is about 51 lbs!)

Our flight was relatively uneventful, the boy slept, my wife tried to sleep, and I watched Logan.  It was good, but pretty violent.  Glad the boy slept through it!

Having a smartphone provided by your foreign hotel is Handy!

Selfie in front of Big Ben

Big Ben through the London Eye.  The old and the new!

We got in early in the morning and sailed through customs/passport control, and then decided to take the Tube to our hotel in Lambeth North.  It worked well, except as mentioned above, we have lots of luggage, and the Tube isn't exactly handicapped accessible.  I ended up lugging all of our luggage up lots of stairs.

Our hotel is great- we are staying at the Marlin Waterloo. It has a pretty central location steps from a train station, walking distance to Westminster Bridge, the London Eye, Aquarium etc, has air conditioning, free wifi, and we got here there was a little cellphone in our room for us to take. It has wifi, free local calls, and is very Handy. In fact, that's the name of it. A great innovation in today's technological world.


I haven't been to London since 1995, although I lived here one summer in 1985 going to acting school.  It's changed quite a bit, even as all the historical elements have stayed in place.  I love how we are traveling, although I wish we'd brought less stuff...  One of the things I remarked to my wife is that if I were choosing the itinerary alone, or if she were choosing the itinerary alone, we would do things very differently.  But it's a great mix of all of our interests!

We've just been her two days, but have done quite a lot in a short amount of time. After getting to the room and taking a nap to clear our heads, we walked around our neighborhood area-- walked up and over Westminster Bridge over by Westminster Abbey, passing Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, over towards Parliament, 10 Downing Street, walked the edge of St. James Park (the Pelican area) and up into Picadilly Circus area, ate dinner, at a little steak joint and then walked into Leicester Square and bought discount tickets for The Play That Goes Wrong for Wed.   After a sojourn in Leicester Square's Lego store and a couple of other stores (Hello, Kingdom of Sweets) we then bought Oyster cards and tubed back to the hotel for a well deserved sleep.

Weirdly this does not get one into
 the Ministry of Magic.  (Nor is it a TARDIS)

Today we got up a little late, picked up one of those ON/OFF tourist buses (included in our London Pass that we bought online) got off at London Bridge, walked over there, and around the new South Bank building the Shard, saw the HMS Belfast museum, ate lunch at a cute Japanese takeway restaurant called Ito (made by the guys from Pret).

After that we walked up through Tower Bridge (but decided not to do the tower or the bridge exhibition) The tower is tomorrow. We then went to Kings Cross station to see Platform 9 3/4 (totally mobbed) and looked at St. Pancras station, (we leave from there on Saturday).  We also walked into the Youtube creator store, and saw the outside of the Youtube creator space (if you have 10K or more subscribers, it's a free service you can use!)  and then we ended up eating dinner at a great fish place in Borough Market with my wife's cousins.   I had the fish and chips and the sticky toffee pudding and two local beers.

Tomorrow it's Tower of London in the morning, followed by hanging around with some friends from college in the afternoon, and the play in the evening.

Thursday we are going to Hampton Court Palace for a picnic with more cousins, followed by dinner with yet more cousins. (My wife has a lot of cousins in London!)

Friday we are at liberty, but will do more sightseeing, I'm sure, including a cruise up the river Thames.  Got any suggestions?

Saturday morning we are up bright and early to drop our stuff off at St. Pancras station, but then double back to get on the bus to take the Harry Potter studio tour. (Yes, we are travelling with a nine year old!)

And then we take the overnight train to Barcelona by the way of Toulouse.  A whole 'nother set of adventures!  Can't wait!

The statue of Chaplin in Leicester Square.  (Chaplin is the guy in the middle, in case its hard to tell!)

London Bridge is not falling down.  (But it wouldn't matter, this is the Tower Bridge!)

The highlight for him so far-- visiting Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station!

Family photo of us in the  Lego Tube, we are squished in between a Beefeater and Shakespeare.
Yep, that sums up London alright!

Halloween Fun in Chicago: A Roundup

Being in a new city means disruptions of our typical routines.  For the last couple of years, we've been going to Safe Halloween in New York, and we've been trick or treating in various places in NY.  This year, in Chicago, it's to steal a Disney musical song, "A Whole New World" 

But it's not too shabby here in Chicago.  There's a million things to do that are Halloween related.  We can't do everything, but it would be intriguing to try!   Here's some of the more promising things on the potential menu:

THE CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO
OCTOBER 25 AT 3 PM  (pre-show activities for kids start at 1:30pm)

"Hallowed Haunts" is a special family show at the Symphony Center that brings scary and magical classical and popular music together for a selection  that will  delight (and perhaps very slightly haunt) your children.  It's a great way to introduce your kids to some pretty amazing classical music, including music from Grieg's Peer Gynt, Stravinski's Firebird, and John Williams score for the first Harry Potter movie! The concert is an annual event, and has been successful enough that it is the only Civic Orchestra event for which there is a charge.  There are also some school performances scheduled for the day before.  Costumes are encouraged (even the musicians get dressed up!)  Tickets range from $15-$60 (depending on where you are sitting.
More info and tickets available on their website:  https://cso.org/TicketsAndEvents/EventDetails.aspx?eid=6634 or by calling 312.294.3076.

HAPPY HAUNTINGS at the Chicago Cultural Center
OCTOBER 23-26

The Chicago Cultural Center is hosting the City of Chicago's Halloween Festival, which is a free celebration of all things Halloween.  The entire event is free, and features magic and puppet shows, a Ghost tour of the Cultural Center, and my friends the Midnight Circus who will be doing a number of free shows over the course of the weekend.  They'll also show some scary movies, have face painting and arts and crafts, and on Saturday there's a costume contest and parade. Food trucks on one side of building will add to the festivities.  You can get a full schedule of events at http://chicagoween.us .

SPOOKY ZOO SPECTACULAR at Lincoln Park Zoo
BOO! AT THE ZOO at Brookfield Zoo

The local zoos make sure to get in the act with activities for kids.  They are both happening on the weekend.  The Lincoln Park Zoo has some family entertainment planned, some arts and crafts, and a fairly tame haunted house with trick or treating (Forget about what the fox says-- what kind of candy does he give out for Halloween?)
At the Brookfield Zoo (in the western suburbs) they are doing the Boo! at the Zoo, which includes pumpkin carving, performances by local high school bands, a Halloween themed carousel, a Haunted Hay Ride (extra charge) and you also get to watch some animals enjoy their own pumpkins.

More information about Spooky Zoo Spectacular: LINCOLN PARK ZOO
More information about Boo! At the Zoo: BROOKFIELD ZOO

HALLOWEEN IN THE PARKS
Chicago Park District

The Chicago Park District has tons of Halloween events going on at many of their parks.  It looks like there are a number of haunted houses, halloween parties, costume parades, pumpkin patches, and lots of other stuff.  There's almost certainly a park within walking or travel distance to you if you live in Chicago.  So you should definitely check them out! More information at their website:  http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/events/halloween/

There are a number of other events going on, far too many to list, including stuff going on at Navy Pier (which includes a Zombie themed haunted house, a masquerade ball, and trick-or-treating sponsored by a candy company!) and lots of safe trick or treating events and costume parades at many various neighborhoods, including Lincoln Square, Roscoe Village and Andersonville , to name just a couple.

If you can't figure out what to do from this list, you should just stay home!