Potted Potter at the Shakespeare Theater

I’m rarely swayed by ads on the Metro, but “Potted Potter” was hard to ignore  given the saturation of Metro posters warning about bad marijuana that turns people into zombies.* I bought tickets to “Potted Potter” at the Shakespeare Theater. I asked a friend to go with me. After a pause, she responded, “Sure, why not,” which was good enough. Maybe I’d have to owe her.

So there we were watching “Potted Potter: An Unauthorized Harry Experience.” The ad had promised a play that condensed all seven Harry Potter books into 70 minutes of onstage fun complete with quidditch, a fire-breathing dragon,** and songs. I have a pretty low bar for entertainment. Give me one joke every three minutes, and I’ll say that show was worth it. “Potted Potter” only owed me 23 laughs.

I lost track of how many jokes the show contained, and the laughs were impossible to count. When I laugh too much, my face starts to hurt. I mean, really hurt. And I laugh a lot. Mostly at myself or at really funny tweets, so my facial muscles get plenty of practice for a big day. “Potted Potter” hurt my face. The kid-friendly show had many funny moments to choose from, but my favorite was the Voldemort dance number. I’d say “Potted Potter” was about a 7 in dogs with eyebrows on the 1-10 scale of funny. That’s a very respectable dogs with eyebrows score.

“Potted Potter: An Unauthorized Harry Experience” runs through September 15^th in D.C. before moving onto Boston. The show’s great. Go see it if you can.

*Turns out, “potted” has nothing to do with the devil weed in Brit-speak.
** Fire is very loosely defined here.
*** Shrimp, the gateway crustacean.