Last week as part of my birthday celebrations, Kate and I went to visit the Harry Potter studio tour. Having grown up reading the books, I’ve always been fascinated by J.K Rowling’s intricate world of Hogwarts, horcruxes and hippogriffs. The great thing about the Harry Potter universe is that it’s tantalisingly close to being real – who’s to say there isn’t secret wizarding world on the periphery of society as we know it? To a child’s untempered imagination, the possibilities are endless.
Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile day out. The amount of work that went into making these films is truly staggering. Supposedly there were hundreds of thousands of costumes and props custom made, which is pretty dizzying if you begin to consider how many hours would have been invested. It’s easy to take for granted the sheer complexity and scale of a project like this, but it’s important to recognise that the finished product is the result of hard work from an array of skilled and talented people. Hair, make up, costumes, lighting, production, audio, visual FX, special FX, animatronics, carpenters, engineers, designers… The list goes on…
Unfortunately there were a few minor quibbles that let the experience down. The gift store had some great merchandise, but alas, even by gift store standards, it was atrociously expensive (£8 for a chocolate frog!?). Also, the Butterbeer tasted like artificial caramel flavouring with cheap lemonade, topped with synthetic squirty cream. Yum.
Generally there were far too many people, and every section felt overcrowded. This wouldn’t be a problem if people were able to behave in a civilised manner, but of course, the camera welding, selfie stick obsessed ego maniacs are a peculiar breed of their own. I guess this an industry wide problem that plagues every large tourist attraction, though.
Ultimately however, the fantasy eventually came to an unwelcome but inevitable end, and I was sad to leave. Back to mundane muggle life!
Tom Eden 