Interview with “Potted Potter” comedy team – A seat is always available for JK Rowling

by · May 25, 2012

In a new interview with OffBroadway, the stars of the hit comedy-improv show Potted Potter, share their personal stories with how the show developed and whether or not J.K. Rowling has ever seen the show.

Dan Clarkson and Jeff Turner bring their Olivier Award nominated rollicking parody to New York City’s Off-Broadway stage for American audiences to enjoy. The show takes the challenge of condensing, or ‘potting,’ the seven book series of Harry Potter into seventy hilarious minutes, which even includes a real-life game of Quidditch with audience members.

From the interview:

Dan, you play a character who doesn’t have a great deal of knowledge of the Potter series, but I assume that’s not true in real life.

DC – No, I’m a huge fan. I’m a, I was going to say 100% closet geek, but I’m not, I’m completely open about it. I queued up to get the fifth book outside the bookstore dressed as a wizard, I cannot wait to go to Harry Potter World so I can go and get my wand measured and find out if I need a dragon wand. I mean I was one of the people when Pottermore was started and you know they were letting a few people in, I stayed up until like 3 in the morning so I could get the password to get on and find out if I was in Hufflepuff House.

JT – When we started all this back in 2005, when Dan first brought the idea of doing the job to me, I hadn’t read any of the books back then. I wasn’t a fan.

Have you had any reaction or communication from JK Rowling?

JT – Some of her team have seen the show and very much seem to enjoy it. There’s a story when we were at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006, playing a sixty-seater theater, we sold out quite early on. After one show, a box office girl, she could only have been about 18, 19, came over looking quite sheepish and her manager said, ‘Tell them what you’ve done’ and it turns out that she may have turned JK Rowling away because we were sold out. We don’t how true that is, but when we heard, we were quite distraught, especially Dan. He just wanted his book signed really. So now every single show we do there’s always a seat that isn’t sold so that if she EVER wants to turn up, she can.

You can read the rest of the interview right here.

If you are going to be in the New York City area, be sure to get your tickets now by visiting Telecharge.com or by calling 212-239-6200.

Potted Potter is now playing for a limited engagement at the Little Shubert Theatre, 4222 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, New York.