With no new Harry Potter film in the offing it is a pity that the characters have not yet made the transition to pantomime so that we can hiss the wicked Lord Voldemort and laugh at the antics of Dame Dumbledore as she loops the loop on her broomstick. Such joys belong in the future, but in the meantime Potter addicts may find moments of comfort in this entertainingly daft parody.

Dan and Jeff, regular storytellers on Blue Peter, follow the route first trodden by the National Theatre of Brent in compressing a heaving mass of material (the history of the world, say,) into a one-act show. Dan (Clarkson) and Jeff (Turner) squash the seven Potter books into 70 minutes — and this includes a fragment from The Lord of the Rings and a glimpse of the Narnia wardrobe.

Jeff is the earnest one, trying to do what the show promises, and Dan the willing but goofy helper who constantly undermines his efforts. I grew rather tired of his dimwit’s grin, though maybe that’s just the way his mouth is shaped because his silliness is often very funny. Puzzling over the meaning of the Deathly Hallows (the title of Volume 7) he cries ‘Hallo!’ a few times and then falls down dead, a wide-eyed literalism typical of the couple’s approach to the intricacies of the Rowling oeuvre.

Again and again — well, seven times — the bespectacled Harry escapes in the nick of time from his adversary by some fantastic twist of the plot. Dan, always playing the evil one, stares in disbelief at being yet again deprived of triumph. While Jeff plays Harry, Dan is everyone else, donning a range of horns, pointy hats and fright wigs, and a tartan bobble for Hagrid.

If I seem familiar with the Rowling characters this is because of a useful website, but you could go to the show almost entirely ignorant of the stories and still enjoy the antics of an adroitly irreverent pair of comics who, because Harry’s school is Hogwarts, introduce us to a pair of warthogs. Friends, enemies and compounds of the two flash past at dizzying speed, and we even get a game of quidditch, with young volunteers from the audience representing teams from Gryffindor and Slytherin. Good fun.

Box office: 0870 0606632, to Jan 3

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