We all know Harry Pot­ter, right? The lovely folks over at Play­shop have turned its basic premise into an improv show called High School Magic­al, full of hi-jinks and com­edy of the wiz­ard­ing sort.

It’s ten years since the Chosen One (who I pre­sume is gif­ted the title by the audi­ence each show, but was Leonardo Pen­guin (Sam Irwin) last night) defeated the creep­ing dark­ness, and all the folks from Spel­ling­ton Col­lege of the Magic Arts have reunited at their school for their ten year school reunion.

Sexu­al Health teach­er Maude McGill (Pippa Drake­ford-Croad) – put­ting off a frankly impress­ive Mag­gie Smith impres­sion – has a dark secret all of her own, while Leonardo Pen­guin just wants to relive his former glory. Hay­ley Rose Dyer (Gabby Ander­son) wants every­one to fol­low her on Witcha­gram and Pen­um­bra Chick­weed (Alayne Dick) is almost determ­ined to get every­one high.

Play­shop’s known for qual­ity improv and this show is no excep­tion. They bring the whimsy and magic of the wiz­ard­ing world, without fall­ing into the weird­ness of some magic­al tropes. Every spell ends with ‘io’ – for example, “Open Door-io!” which does exactly what it says on the tin, and the magic has no lim­its.

High School Magic­al feels up with the times, which I enjoy, and I’ll nev­er say no to a bit of innu­endo. It’s just bloody fun, eh.

There is a main cast through­out the week for the show, as well as sup­port­ing artists who pop in as new char­ac­ters occa­sion­ally, and since it is improv the story changes every night, so I know I’ll def­in­itely be com­ing to High School Magic­al again.

High School Magic­al is being per­formed at BATS Theatre from now until Sat­urday. Get your tick­ets here!