By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
I’m no stranger to the ‘reduced’ format when stage performers decide to condense a very well-known work from its voluminous size down to a few minutes. The final result is often hilarious and you do not need to attempt to read the book afterwards! Take, for example, the many works of William Shakespeare (which the Reduced Shakespeare Company is famous for) or Star Wars (One Man Star Wars). There’re other works too, and when I heard about Potted Potter, I had to be there and drag James Shaw along.
Interestingly enough this show has a James Percy as the straight-laced half of the comedic duo (he plays Harry throughout the show) who knows the material and Joseph Maudsley making himself appear like he did not know the books. Maudsley was kinetic on stage and cross-dressed. Can you imagine him as Cho Chang? For the strong male personalities, he played Hagrid like a Scotsman. To hear him claim that he had not finished reading the saga made the sitcom all the more hilarious because what’s on stage mirrored the friendship I have with my buddy. Though I don’t slap James around, he does get well-deserved noogies. In order to know how to play out some scenes, Joseph was required to know the final book by the end of the show. I bet my buddy felt a little lost. Continue reading “Making a B Line (can’t say P) to Potted Potter”