Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the Jack Thorne play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Nick reviews the history of how Rowling was sold on the idea of a Wizarding World stage production via a bit of bait and switch marketing and John reads the review of the Jack Thorn script by Pepperdine English Professor James Thomas. Neither John nor Nick is a big fan of the play but their back and forth about the several controversies connected with it and the question of its being “the eighth Harry Potter story” are still challenging and fun.

New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here’s what we’re doing:

On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth’ in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR’s Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling’s twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author’s writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed’ metaphor. The ‘Lake’ is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed’ is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.

Tomorrow? Another work with Rowling’s name on the cover that is the not the work she wrote! Nick and John take a Lake and Shed long look at the screenplay for the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film. On the Lake side of things, Nick explores the genesis of this movie franchise (and finds The Blind Pig speakeasy in Rowling’s home!). John lays out the twelve scenes cut from Rowling’s shooting script to make the case that what was published as ‘The Original Screenplay’ was a Reader’s Digest condensed version of her story, one that “fit the woman to the dress.”

Links to posts mentioned in today’s Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:

* Pepperdine’s Premiere Potter Pundit James Thomas Reviews Jack Thorne’s ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’

* Re-Hashing, Re-working, and Resurrection: The Cursed Child and Why Authors Cannot Settle for Re-Visiting their Texts.

* Rowling’s Pregnancy Traps: Bellatrix Lestrange and the Cursed Child Delphini

* New ‘Cursed Child’ Condensed Version: Will the New Play’s Script Be Published?

* Cursed Child and HogwartsProfessor Fan Fiction post Deathly Hallows

* Cursed Child: Rowling Video Testimony

* MuggleNet Academia: Four Hogwarts Professors Discuss ‘Cursed Child’

* Reading, Writing, Rowling Episode 12: Serious Readers Talk About Cursed Child Performances in NYC, London

* Guest Post: PotterPundit at Cursed Child

* Voldemort, Delphini, and Oedipus: Complex Folks and Cursed Children

* Meta-Potter: Is ‘Cursed Child’ Harry Potter Canon or Something Else?

The eleven HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo’s Calling

* A Lake and Shed Reading of The Silkworm

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Career of Evil

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