Review: Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter

As a self-confessed Potterhead, I'm a little bit embarrassed that it's taken me so long to visit the Warner Bros. Studio Tour. 

Then again, I'm a purist, and don't love the films (I like them, but there's no love), so perhaps it's right that it's taken me a while. Going on the tour, though, has given me a new appreciation for the films.

Based in the Warner Bros. studios in Leavesden, where much of the interior shots of the Harry Potter films were done, the tour consists of one really massive warehouse, one still quite big warehouse, and an outside bit connecting the two together.

Our tickets were in the first time slot of the day, which was great because the attraction was busy enough to feel lively, but not busy enough that we couldn't see anything.

While waiting for the doors to open, staff were giving out tour "passports". When I asked for one, I was told they were just for children, but a moment later the woman I spoke to tapped me on the shoulder and sneakily handed me one - woo! I just wanted it as a souvenir, but I did collect the stamps on the way round the tour, which was fun.

After a short film, we headed into the Great Hall from Hogwarts. The actual Great Hall. It's set up as though filming will start any minute, and has costumes from the films dotted around the place, including Daniel Radcliffe's first Hogwarts uniform - it's tiny.

There's a guide in the Great Hall who gives you a speech, but after that you're on your own, which is how I liked it. You can buy digital guides, but save your money and just savour what you're seeing. If you have questions there's plenty of information boards around, and all the staff on duty are Potter experts.

The first warehouse is full to the brim with everything from costumes to sets (the Potions classroom is stunning) to props to broomsticks. We took our time taking in things like the boys' dormitory, Dumbledore's office and the massive sculpture from the Ministry of Magic in The Deathly Hallows.

We couldn't resist a go on the broomsticks. While the experience is great - you dress up in robes, sit on a broomstick in front of a green screen and then fly through London - you're not allowed to take any photos, since the tour wants you to buy their photos of you. It's disappointing, but the experience was fun. Plus, we took so many photos of everything else (you can see a few of the 200-plus I captured above) we didn't need to buy the broomstick ones.

One of my favourite parts was the huge cabinet full to the brim with things like copies of The Quibbler and The Daily Prophet, the admission letters to Hogwarts Harry receives and dozens of sweets and products from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Like everything else in the room, they're all genuine props from the films.

We then headed outside - make sure you see everything because the tour is forward only, no going back. The outside area includes the external sets for the Hogwarts bridge and Number 4 Privet Drive, as well as the giant chess pieces used in the film, the Knight Bus, and Hagrid's Motorbike and the Weasleys' car, all of which provided plenty of great photo opportunities.

Then it was on to the second warehouse, which was much more technical than the first. It included information on all the models made for the production, plus magnificent, detailed architectural drawings of just about everything they ever built. I thought the highlight of the tour was going to be the Diagon Alley set, which is housed in this second warehouse, but it was eclipsed at the last minute by the massive model of Hogwarts, which was used for swooping external shots.

At just over £21 each for me and three children, I thought before going the ticket was pretty expensive, but on reflection it's well worth the price. However, the tour does make its money in other ways - the most expensive gift shop I've ever come across at an attraction (I forked out almost £15 for a notebook), and extortionate prices for pictures of you riding a broomstick in front of a green screen.

If you can keep from spending all your galleons, sickles and knuts in the gift shop, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour is a perfect half day out for any Harry Potter fan.

Top Ten Tuesday (#13) - most memorable secondary characters

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish, where the writers, like me, are particularly fond of lists.

This week's topic is...top 10 most memorable secondary characters. For the purposes of this top 10, I'm going to take secondary to mean anyone who wasn't the protagonist, regardless of how big their role was.





1. Ron Weasley - the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
Ron was everything a best friend and sidekick should be, and I loved every glimpse we got of him and his life.

2. Hermione Granger - the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
As above, Hermione was a great secondary character. Without both her and Ron, the Harry Potter books, and Harry himself, would not have been as brilliant as they were.

3. James - All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill
A really intriguing secondary character, I wanted to know a lot more about James.

4. Mr Peterson - The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
I'm not actually finished with this book yet, but I love Mr Peterson for his wit and his acceptance of Alex.

5. Isabel - The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater
I loved Isabel so much, and really, really wanted to see more about her life. I thought her story was as powerful as the protagonist's, a sign of a really good secondary character.

6. Gus - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Oh Gus. What is there to say? A wonderful secondary character who we fall in love with as Hazel does.

7. Lula - The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich
I recently reviewed Notorious Nineteen and said the series wasn't as good as it was when it first started. Lula, however, is still as hilarious as she was in the first book, maybe even more so. She's everything a sidekick shouldn't be, but it works.

8. Jasper Cullen - The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer
Edward and Bella - *yawn*. Jasper, on the other hand, was a fascinating character and I wish we'd spent more time with him.

9. Gilbert Blythe - Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
I loved Gilbert, and his and Anne's relationship was easily the most fascinating of the book for me when I was younger.

10. Justin - Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black
Justin is a character we don't know a whole lot about, but what I saw of him I really liked. I assume he will play a bigger part in the sequel.

Who are your favourite secondary characters?

My week in books (#4)

My week in books is a feature where I share things I've found interesting from the past week that concern books, literature and all things book blogging.

There's not long to go until Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas is released (you can read my review here). In the meantime, Maas has written a couple of novellas which are being exclusively published by bloggers. First up is The Assassin and The Princess, set between Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, and 12. The second one, The Assassin and The Captain, starts here.

You have no idea how much I love a good infographic, and this week Ruby over at Feed Me Books Now combined my love of infographics and books by creating an amazing infographic about dystopian novels. (Could I have used the word infographic more in the previous sentence?) Here's the original post, and here's the large version of the infographic, which you can zoom in on. Go look, and leave her some praise in the comments.

This week I discovered that the estate of Roald Dahl has a Twitter account - @roald_dahl. They publish lots of cool quotes and tidbits from the novels, as well as news and information, and plenty of illustrations by the amazing Quentin Blake.

Also on Twitter is @BooksOnTheBBC, a campaign to get a regular book programme/slot on to one of the BBC's television channels.

Daniel D'Addario wrote a piece in Salon this week (here) about what makes a novel literary as opposed to chick-lit. It's an interesting read.

The Independent on Sunday announced this week that it will launch a new arts and books section on September 8, concentrating on features, interviews, essays, previews and comment rather than reviews. In a time when many publications are cutting back on arts and books coverage, it's good to see a newspaper trying to do something different rather than just shutting something down.

And finally, some pretty pictures. I popped in to Waterstone's the other day, and spotted some gorgeous Harry Potter covers I'd not seen before (they didn't have all the books)...

Have you spotted anything this week you want to share? Let me know in the comments below.

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (#1)

Harry Potter moment of the week is a meme started by Uncorked Thoughts. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object, quote etc. from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related.

I've decided to take part in this meme because I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and what other reason is needed but that? This week's the topic is...favourite house.

Gryffindor image from here.

I'm a bit of a traditionalist, and am going to say Gryffindor. If I was a character in Harry Potter, it would be Hermione - slightly nerdy, head always in a book, distinctly uncool, loyal to friends (I'm nowhere near as clever as Hermione though). So Gryffindor it is.

Gryffindor's colours are red and gold, and its mascot is a lion, which works for me since I was fascinated by big cats when I was younger!

Some of my favourite Gryffindor characters:

•The whole Weasley family - who doesn't love the Weasleys?
•Oliver Wood - great sportsman. Mostly, though, I love the accent of the guy who plays him in the film.
•Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet - three women who more than held their own on the Quidditch team.

What is your favourite Harry Potter house?

Top Ten Tuesday (#1) - Top Ten Favorite Books I Read Before I Was A Blogger

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish, where the writers, like me, are particularly fond of lists.

This week's topic is... Top Ten Favorite Books I Read Before I Was A Blogger. I can guarantee that after this list is published I will think of ten other favourite books I should have mentioned (and then ten more and then ten more), but such is the life of the reading obsessed.

So, in no particular order, here are ten of my favourite books spanning different periods in my life, but all from before I started blogging...

1. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
I read this over and over when I was younger, and my copy is pretty well worn. I sort of grew up with Anne, every time I read it I was a little bit older, and could therefore relate a little bit more to the feelings she was going through as she got older.

2. The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Another one I read a lot when I was younger. I sort of share a name with the protagonist, and I loved that she was in some ways a very modern 21st century female, despite the time this book is set in and the time it was written in - Sara is strong, hard working, she's independent, she's fierce.

3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A second one by the same author (and one I read lots and lots and lots as a child, check out the spine of my copy in the picture below!). Even though it took me ages to learn how to read the Yorkshire dialect, I still loved this book almost immediately. I'm not very green fingered, but if I could, I would create a secret garden like the one Mary, Dickon and Colin create.

4. The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
I'll count these all as one. Although some of the later books in the series could have done with a bit of editing, Rowling created a fantastic world with this series, one with very few holes in it and one that I can immerse myself in completely whenever I open the novels.

5. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
I like to describe Stardust as a fairytale for adults whenever I tell people about it. Gaiman is a wonderful writer, effortlessly combining all sorts of worlds - from Victoriana to the supernatural to modern England - to create his own world. (By the way, whoever has my copy of this really needs to give it back.)

6. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
This book had me gripped from beginning to end. Although I had my suspicions about where it was going, Shriver writes so well that it was only pages before the big reveal that I guessed exactly what was about to occur, and even then I read the coming scenes in a mix of astonishment and horror and dismay. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a thought-provoking novel, and I still find myself thinking over the issues it raises every now and then.

7. Gentlemen & Players by Joanne Harris
My introduction to Harris started with Chocolat (after I watched the film) and has most recently encompassed blueeyedboy, but my absolute favourite book of hers is Gentlemen & Players, the ending of which took me completely by surprise.

8. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
This book was not what I was expecting at all, but it's haunting and beautiful and utterly magnificent.

9. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
I read Tartt's The Little Friend first, and didn't get on too well with it. Luckily, I perservered and started The Secret History, which I found dark and fascinating, and worthy of being called a modern classic.

10. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
It was a toss up between this, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as to the literary classic that should go on my list, but Wuthering Heights won out because it's full of romance and suspense and tragedy, and I wish it would end differently each time I finish it, even though I know it won't.

So that's my ten (I can only find eight to picture, and didn't want to put all the Harry Potters in), what's in yours?