{"id":39325,"date":"2025-08-02T06:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T06:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39325\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T06:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T06:08:08","slug":"timeframe-when-the-uae-was-left-spellbound-by-harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39325\/","title":{"rendered":"Timeframe: When the UAE was left spellbound by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abu Dhabi is getting ready for a spellbinding experience as Harry Potter<\/a>: The Exhibition comes to Manarat Al Saadiyat.<\/p>\n

But before the exhibition, the UAE was already captivated by the wizarding world<\/a> created by J K Rowling<\/a> as fans of the Boy Wizard turned out to Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates<\/a> for the book launch of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in July 2016. The book featured the script of the then-new two-part play of the same name, which had its official premiere in London’s West End<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fans of the eagerly awaited novel turned out to the Virgin Megastore inside the mall at 2am to be among the first to get a copy. The book went on sale at 3am, to coincide with the midnight launch in the UK.<\/p>\n

To set the mood, the Harry Potter movie theme music played in the background as fans dressed up for the occasion. Some had lightning-shaped scars on their foreheads, created with make-up pencils, while others wore the wizard’s signature round eyeglasses.<\/p>\n

A woman wore a lavender wig \u2013 probably in honour of Nymphadora Tonks, a witch who died while defending Hogwarts \u2013 while a Professor Snape look-alike was spotted, with the distinctive nose and severe black hairstyle, along with a touch of kohl around the eyes.<\/p>\n

Black picnic tables were set up at the entrance of the store to mimic the Hogwarts Great Hall, while gold and black balloons were on the floor. There was even one foil balloon in the shape of the Snitch \u2013 the winged ball used in the wizarding sport of Quidditch.<\/p>\n

Co-written by Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is set 19 years after the conclusion of the final novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It features a grown-up Harry, struggling to balance his life as a father of three and an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic.<\/p>\n

UAE players with central contracts<\/p>\n

Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Rameez Shahzad, Shaiman Anwar, Adnan Mufti, Mohammed Usman, Ghulam Shabbir, Ahmed Raza, Qadeer Ahmed, Amir Hayat, Mohammed Naveed and\u00a0Imran Haider.<\/p>\n

The Sand Castle <\/p>\n

Director: Matty Brown<\/p>\n

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea<\/p>\n

Rating: 2.5\/5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abu Dhabi is getting ready for a spellbinding experience as Harry Potter: The Exhibition comes to Manarat Al…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[35023,64,63,457,5951,134,156,155,35022],"class_list":{"0":"post-39325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-arts-culture-team","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-dubai","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-standard","15":"tag-story","16":"tag-weekend"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}