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Monday 26 November 2018

Puffs Filmed Live Off-Broadway Review Some Spoilers Might Be Ahead


Harry Potter fans i've reviewed alot of the films and even the script to the stage play but i've never reviewed or for that matter even watched a Harry Potter stage production before well now that has changed because i've just finished watching a stage production and here is my review of Puffs Filmed Live Off-Broadway.

The play basically retells the events of the books but it tells them from a different perspective that being from the point of view of several Hufflepuff students and it throws in a comedic twist. I admit when i first downloaded the play I had no idea what to expect so it wasn't very high on my list of things to watch but after watching a clip of it online it shot right up there and while there might not be a story which to me is fine because if you want the story you can just read the books or see the films it's worth watching just to see what they add to it.


Since the cast list is so small each actor is playing at least two roles so starring in the play we have Madeline Bundy as Suzy , Jessie Cannizzaro as Sally , Anna Dart as Hannah , Alex Haynes as J.Finch , Reginald Keith Jackson as Oliver , Sonia Mena as Meghan , Andy Miller as Leanne , Zac Moon as Wayne and Harry Waller as The Narrator. 

I admit I wasn't expecting the cast to be any good in fact I would have just settled for OK but in truth the cast is pretty good there really good when it comes to the comedy and while they don't really get the emotional moments they do there best with them and for me that's enough but i also have a feeling that they could have done better with those moments if the script allowed for it.


Considering that this is a stage production they get alot of cinematic angles i'm not sure if that's because they were filming something so they had the crew for it or what but there are shots in here which look really good. Even tho the premise of this play basically follows all of the books they do manage to add in there own storyline there's one that starts near the end of what would be the first book and it has a really good pay off.

Now just because this focuses on a different bunch of characters doesn't mean that the more well known characters don't make an appearance and it's really fun to see how those characters get represented i'm not going to say how there presented in this production but if you ever do see this you will laugh at how the represent Ron and i personally love what they did with Cedric I thought it was really funny and yet at the same time something that i'd never thought of.



I don't think this needs saying since they do all seven of the books but incase you guys think of it as a spoiler i've thrown up the old spoiler warning. They do the Battle Of Hogwarts and while there are jokes added in there it's mainly treated as a serious issue and i'll be the first to say I didn't expect them to do the battle at all so when it started I was really surprised by it heck they even do a spin on the harry and Dumbeldoor scene from the final book which was really funny.

There's alot of jokes in this play and all of them are really funny I don't think there was ever a time where I wasn't laughing out loud they even throw in a pretty funny Fantastic Beasts reference and a Doctor Who reference in the same scene. One of the jokes that really caught me of guard but at the same time was really freaking funny was learning who did the sex ed class at Hogwarts i'm not going to spoil but the first person you think of when you think of sex ed at Hogwarts is exactly who it is.


Overall if you ever get the chance I suggest you go and order the DVD which you can get from puffs the play . com no spaces it really is worth it because it's so funny and since this is basically a fan made thing i'm not going to give this a rating.




Doctor Who "The Witchfinders" SPOILERISH!!!!!!!!!!! Review


Doctor Who fans we are in the home stretch for this series and I have to say that while this series has had it's up's and it's downs the series as whole has been really solid so let's see if that trend does continue with my review of this weeks episode The Witchfinders.

The plot of this weeks episode is The Doctor and friends find themselves in 17th century Lancashire and find that they are in the middle of a witch hunt. I'm not going into anymore detail about the plot because of the fact that I think it really does need to be seen to be believed but I can say that the story was really well told and was pretty original which for a show that's just turned fifty five is pretty huge achievement.


The guest stars for this episode are Tilly Steele as Willa Twiston , original X-Men movie star Alan Cumming as King James and former Benidorm star Siobhan Finneran as Becka Savage. I don't know if anyone else thinks this or not but the guest stars for this series have all put in great performances and the same thing is true for this episode because all of the guest stars really do deliver and it now makes me want to see who's going to be guest starring in next weeks episode.

Of course our leads are Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor , Bradley Walsh as Graham , Tosin Cole as Ryan and Mandip Gill as Yaz. I think it's come as a bit of a cliche to say that both Bradley and Jodie are fantastic in episodes but they really are great in this series and in this episode and we actually got a bit of backstory about Yaz which was nice and both she and Ryan turn in pretty decen performances there not really given much to do tho in the episode.


Guys and girls from this point onwards there will be slight spoilers to the episode so you have been warned. The only real issue I have with the episode is more personal then anything but there doing a witch hunt episode and there not setting it in Salem to me that's a huge missed opportunity since that is where the most famous witch hunt happened so it would have made sense for them to set the episode there and tech younger fans about what was going on there at that time.

I will say that this episode felt I don't wanna say it SJWish but that's the feeling that I was getting because of the fact that almost every woman in the episode comments on the fact that it's hard for them to get by in those times and they have a King act sexist towards The Doctor don't get me wrong tho he was acting like it but from his point of view that would have been seen as the norm and none of the females living in the village at the time would have known any different so having them say that it's hard for them in those times feels very out of place.


Now i'm not a history fan so I have no idea if what they said about King James was true or not but it did add a little something to his character and that to me made him interesting because without that bit of backstory he would have come of a boring character to me which would have been a shame because like I said before he's played really well by Alan Cumming.

I'm just going to come right out and say it the monsters this weeks were basically Zombies actually stop and think about it for a second they reanimate the dead that's what a zombie is but I will admit that these creatures are really creepy looking i'm not going to say nightmare inducing but they will at least make you pull a blanket over your eyes.


Incase you were wondering if this Doctor was going to be action packed then this episode kind of answers that because she straight up jumps in a lake in order to try and save someone from dying and that's something I don't think any of the other Doctors have done and no i'm not going to re-watch all the episodes just to find out because there's at least a thousand episodes but I can say that it was refreshing to see The Doctor do that.

Since i've not been giving thus guy much credit this series i'm going to mention him right now the score by Segun Akinola is for me the best score in this series i'm not going to say it's the best since the show came back in 2005 but it's easily the best in series 11 every track fits the scene perfectly and none of it over powers the scene it's in.


Overall this was a really good and fun episode it's also an episode that does have some flaws but if you like episodes about witches then this is the episode for you so I give this weeks episode a solid 7.5 out of 10 from me.