Ridikkulus! Harry Potter Comedy at the UCB Theater

Last night’s sold-out UCB show, “Up Late! With Lord Voldemort,� drew an enormous crowd of the most delightful mix: Harry Potter nerds and comedy nerds. (Overheard behind our seat in the Hufflepuff section: “As long as I get my hair cut before Comic-Con…�) Achilles Stamatelaky wrote the show with enough detailed knowledge to satisfy the kind of fans who hiss when the name “Snape� is mentioned and sufficient smirk to keep it funny for everyone else. Billy Merritt channeled the voice of the surly Sorting Hat in what was the night’s best performance. “Do you know how hard it is to make a rhyming song year after year about the same subject,� complained the hat, before declaring to an audience member, “The whore goes to Gryffindor!� Lennon Parham’s J.K. Rowling frostily explained that inconsistencies in the books were easily explained by “magic,� and the Weasley Brothers did a snappy “Who’s on First� routine involving Quidditch.

The audience was wholly unprepared for Anthony Atamanuik’s bearded Severus Snape, especially his reading of erotic Harry Potter fan fiction. “Nothing in Honeydukes candy shop tasted this good,� he intoned to nervous audience giggles, which transitioned to helpless laughter at the thought of Harry “dart[ing] his tongue back and forth like a golden snitch.� But maybe the blue humor should have been abandoned after the fan fic: Crabbe and Goyle are gay, Hagrid is gay, Madame Maxine is a tranny, Harry wants pubic hair, and dildos are actually “exotic wands.� Hermione suggested that the audience was “filled with people who had to borrow their mother’s car keys to get here,� and she wasn’t far off; you should have seen the look on one kid’s face upon hearing the word “fisting,� likely for the first time. He’ll never think of Draco and Harry the same way again. —Aileen Gallagher