Revealed: Professor Sprout’s Hogwarts greenhouse to open at the Warner Bros Harry Potter studio tour (and visitors can pull a screaming Mandrake out of a pot)
- The magical greenhouse will open at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter on July 1
- The greenhouse will be part of a brand-new feature, Mandrakes and Magical Creatures
- Fans of filmmaking will learn how Mandrakes were brought to life using a mixture of scale models and CGI
- Warner Bros. Studio Tour London will also introduce a scale model of The Burrow, the Weasley family home
A spellbinding new attraction at ‘Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter’ has sprouted.
For the very first time, visitors will be able to go through the glass doors of Professor Pomona Sprout’s greenhouse – a fan-favourite location from the Harry Potter film series where Hogwarts students were taught herbology by Professor Sprout, played by Miriam Margolyes.
The greenhouse has been built by the original Harry Potter filmmakers and will be filled with a magical assortment of plants, including the infamous Mandrake and the Venomous Tentacula.
For the very first time, visitors to ‘Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter’ will be able to go through the glass doors of Professor Sprout’s greenhouse – a fan-favourite set from the Harry Potter film series
A scene from 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets shows a herbology lesson taught by Professor Sprout, played by Miriam Margolyes
It will be a permanent addition to the Studio Tour and will open on July 1 as part of a brand-new feature, Mandrakes and Magical Creatures.
The themed tour will kick off with a welcome into the Great Hall. Here, visitors will be greeted by a recreation of the ‘Frog Choir’ scene from 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where Professor Filius Flitwick conducted a choir of singing students as they held giant frogs in their arms.
The costume that Flitwick – played by Warwick Davis – wore in the film will be on display.
From here, visitors will move on to the greenhouse, where they’ll lay eyes on the Venomous Tentacula – the spiky plant with a venomous bite that appears in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – that hangs from the ceiling.
They will also get the chance to yank out a potted Mandrake – a magical plant that looks like a human, and which lets out a cry that can be fatal to any human that hears it – as part of an interactive display in the tour.
‘Fans of the Wizarding World will be able to recreate the unforgettable scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Harry, Ron, and Hermione came face to face with screaming Mandrake plants for the first time,’ a statement reveals.
The greenhouse will be a permanent addition to the Studio Tour and will open as part of a brand-new feature, Mandrakes and Magical Creatures
Visitors will be able to stop to pull out a potted Mandrake (a magical plant that looks like a human) as part of an interactive display on the tour
On the left, Ron Weasley, played by Rupert Grint, holds up a Mandrake in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Pictured on the right is a model of a Mandrake that already features on the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London
What’s more, fans of filmmaking will learn about how Mandrakes were brought to life using a mixture of scale models and CGI in the Creatures Workshop.
According to a statement, during filming, various techniques were used to achieve the movement of the magical plants. The movement of the Mandrakes was achieved using animatronic controllers hidden beneath the table, while the sinuous grasping movement of the Tentacula’s tendrils was computer-generated.
More magical creatures from the world of Harry Potter will also feature on the Mandrakes and Magical Creatures tour – visitors will encounter Cornish Pixies, Dumbledore’s beloved Fawkes phoenix, the animatronic Monster Book of Monsters (a book that could bite off the reader’s fingers) and will learn how filmmakers created the ghostly Thestrals.
Above is Diagon Alley, another permanent fixture at ‘Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter’
Another new addition to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London will be a one-to-three-ratio scale version of The Burrow, the charming family home of the Weasley family. Above is an interior set of the Burrow, which already features in the tour
Not only that, but Warner Bros. Studio Tour London has revealed its plans to expand the exterior sets of the tour – one new addition will be the fountain from the Hogwarts Clock Tower Courtyard.
Another will be a one-to-three-ratio scale version of The Burrow, the charming family home of the Weasley family that was first introduced in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and the Weasley brothers arrive in Mr Weasley’s flying Flying Ford Anglia.
At the model of The Burrow, film-making fans can learn the camera trickery behind the external scenes of the family home. During production of 2009’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Burrow took filmmakers 14 weeks to build but only six minutes to burn down in the iconic scene where the Death Eaters set the home ablaze, a statement reveals.
Mandrakes and Magical Creatures will run until September 12. For more information visit www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/whats-on/mandrakes-magical-creatures.
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