ImproMafia Conjure The Magical World Of Harry Potter Before Your Very Eyes

The wizarding world will be turned on its head as Brisbane's foremost improvised theatre group, ImproMafia, bring Potter Unplotted to the Brisbane Powerhouse stage. Every muggle, mudblood, witch or wizard still waiting for their Hogwarts letter to arrive is invited, and ImproMafia's Artistic Director Amy Currie solemnly swears that they are up to no good. "We at ImproMafia love doing genre-based improv, we're always doing full-length plays, basically, completely improvised and we love to gently mock the things that we are very, very fond of," she says.

"There are so many questions that are raised when I look at the wizarding world. How do they live on a day-to-day basis? What are their hopes and dreams?"

With previous shows tackling Shakespeare, murder mysteries and something called Lord Of The Thrones ("...you can guess what we were parodying there"), the improv-comedy mob thought it was high time they took on the Potter universe to "take the piss out of it just a little bit". Developing on the approach first coined by Adelaide's Scriptease, Potter Unplotted will delve into minor characters. "We have 150 names and they have been collated from throughout the books and films: these are the characters that are mentioned once in passing, you might have one whole paragraph in the whole series of books," Amy explains.

With the five actors drawing names from The Goblet Of Fire, the audience will vote on whose story they want to hear and Currie is rather tight-lipped on which characters she hopes will find life on the stage: "I think almost anyone in the Harry Potter world could be absolutely fascinating because there are so many questions that are raised when I look at the wizarding world. How do they live on a day-to-day basis? What are their hopes and dreams? What are the dirty little secrets? And I think you could have a very, very good time indeed answering those questions."

With varying levels of Potter-heads among the cast, preparation has involved some serious homework - being drilled on spells by a Harry Potter expert, and practicing wand technique and naming conventions. "If you're going to parody something, you need to get it right," says Currie. She assures us ImproMafia have been to "Harry Potter bootcamp" and promises they're "prepared for any eventuality".

But they're not only taking their own word for it, a brief quiz before the show will determine the biggest Potter-head in the audience, who will then be charged with making sure the cast don't stray too far from JK Rowling's writings. "So if we say something completely ridiculous like, 'I'm just going to get on my magical spaceship and fly to the moon,' that person will be in charge of yelling out at us and telling us we're not allowed to do that," Currie explains.

Each performance of the six-night run will feature a completely unique and unscripted set of characters and circumstances. With the final three shows already sold out, Potter fanatics will need to get in quick before tickets become as elusive as the golden snitch. "And you never know, you might just see a few of your favourite characters from the main series just pop in here and there."