Gossip

JK Rowling to co-produce Harry Potter play in the West End?

The show, which will focus on the boy wizard’s early life before he went to Hogwarts, will reportedly see Rowling collaborate with a playwright and is produced by Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender

Rosie Bannister
London London's West End
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

It looks like Harry Potter could be flying into the West End "within two years".

JK Rowling is co-producing a new stage play, focusing on the wizard's early years, with West End impresario Sonia Friedman and Broadway producer Colin Callender, according to the Daily Mail.

Rowling will collaborate with a playwright on the show, which looks at the "previously untold story of Harry Potter’s early years as an orphan and outcast".

The team do not currently have a theatre or creative team, but they are looking at opening in 2015, according to Baz Bamigboye.

Warner Bros, the studio behind the eight film series adapted from Rowling's multi-million selling books, will reportedly be involved in the development of the show, as they were for the musical adaption of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Rowling said that the idea brought to her by Friedman and Callender was "the only one that really made sense to me, and which had the sensitivity, intensity and intimacy I thought appropriate for bringing Harry’s story to the stage.". She added that "after a year in gestation, it is very exciting to see this project moving onto the next phrase."

Friedman is one of the producers of The Book of Mormon, and is also behind Mojo – which features in the cast one of the films' stars Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in all eight films. Callender produced the TV version of the RSC's Nicholas Nickleby, and last year's Lucky Guy on Broadway.

The Harry Potter series, comprising of seven books, has sold over 450 million copies since the first one – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in 1997.