MIHS’ play “Puffs” is a comedic show about the classic story of Harry Potter from the perspective of the house Hufflepuff.
It was entertaining and quite enjoyable to watch; however, its humor at times was questionable and more suited for an adult audience as well as targeted towards Harry Potter fans. That said, although at first the audience took some warming up to the jokes, the theatre was very engaged and vocal as the cast humorously delivered their lines and ad-libbed small jokes here and there.
However, some jokes in the script of the show didn’t land as they were very reliant on prior knowledge of the story of Harry Potter and either required some thinking in order to make light of the joke or just were simply lost without context.
This did, however, allow the ad-libbed jokes and phrases to be the highlight of the humor, using modern events as material such as having Voldemort impersonate President Trump throughout the second half. One partially surprising element to look out for is that there are many references to adult themes and a lot of swearing, making the show less kid friendly.
The cast did a good job of staying in character even with the amount of audience engagement, with characters coming down through the isles, throwing candy and tissues into the front rows and talking to the audience through the narrator of the story.
The characters were well-acted with their own senses of humor and personality. The ending, I found, was quite shocking as it felt like it ended at a different note than a majority of stories, really showing the main character’s plot armor and how some side characters are really just side characters.
The props and set seemed to be lower budget but this enhanced the humor of the story. They added the characters Ron and Hermione in as a red mop and a brown haggardly wig which made for funny characters as they were often seen held up by Harry Potter or thrown around.
The costumes were very simple and easy to switch in and out of as seen with the numerous and quick costume changes. Some of the costumes were very comedically simple, using a dragon onesie to be a dragon or a shawl with lights to be a ghost. There were some costume mishaps in the show but they were played off well and humorously by the cast.
The set was generally very good but there were some instances where the equipment malfunctioned. These malfunctions, however, were again quite funny, with an example being stairs leading up to the stage which broke upon impact and brought a laugh from the audience. The stage cleverly used projectors and music to add funny scenes of romance and a cool addition of a projected live film onto the side walls of the stage.
Overall, it was a very fun and engaging show that I would definitely recommend, although I would recommend it with a bit of prior knowledge about Harry Potter.
