BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Harry Potter and the biggest West End show EVER: Spellbinding drama about the fate of young wizard's parents is coming to London's theatreland

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Harry Potter And The Cursed Child will open at the Palace Theatre in the West End. The story was hammered out by J.K. Rowling in collaboration with John Tiffany and Jack Thorne

The lives of Harry Potter’s murdered parents are to be explored in a spellbinding drama that will open in the West End next summer.

Called Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, the play will open at the Palace Theatre — in the heart of London’s theatreland.

Tickets will go on sale in the autumn, meaning The Cursed Child will open in the middle of 2016, attracting a box-office advance the likes of which hasn’t been seen in London before. Think bigger than blockbuster musicals The Book Of Mormon, or The Lion King, or Wicked.

The story was hammered out by Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling in collaboration with John Tiffany — who will direct the production — and Jack Thorne, who has written the resulting play that this column first told you about more than a year ago.

The Cursed Child delves into what happened to Harry’s parents — Lily Evans Potter and James Potter — before they were killed by Lord Voldemort, forcing an infant Harry to be raised in miserable circumstances by his mother’s sister, Petunia, her horrid husband Vernon and their spoiled son Dudley.

Informal casting has already started, with the play’s creative team — plus producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender — keeping an eye on thespians with the potential to play the leads at the Palace Theatre.

The roles are perfect for up-and-coming young actors.

Lily was just 20 when Harry was born, and a year older when she and husband James were slain.

The play may also look at the complicated relationship between siblings Lily and Petunia. A muggle like the rest of her family, Petunia was always put out by her sister’s magical prowess.

There is also dramatic fodder in the friendship between Lily and Severus Snape during their schooldays at Hogwarts (both were members of the Order Of The Phoenix).

The Cursed Child delves into what happened to Harry’s parents — Lily Evans Potter and James Potter — before they were killed by Lord Voldemort, forcing an infant Harry to be raised in miserable circumstances by his mother’s sister, Petunia, her horrid husband Vernon and their spoilt son Dudley. Above Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in The Order Of The Phoenix film

Above, young Harry with his deceased parents. Lily was just 20 when Harry was born, and a year older when she and husband James were slain

Snape helped Lily refine her magical powers, and through the course of the seven Harry Potter novels it became clear he carried a torch for her. But though she cared for him, she did not love him. Instead, she fell for James Potter — a student she had once loathed for his cockiness.

Another of their friends — Remus Lupin — may also figure in the story.

No one connected to Harry Potter And The Cursed Child is giving away anything about it.

I started making inquiries about the Palace Theatre several weeks ago and was magically led up a garden path; but yesterday both the name of the theatre and the play’s title were confirmed to me.

The new play may also look at the complicated relationship between siblings Lily and Petunia. A muggle like the rest of her family, Petunia was always put out by her sister’s magical prowess. Above, The late Richard Griffiths as Uncle Vernon, Harry Melling as Dudley and Fiona Shaw as Petunia in Order Of The Phoenix

Questions about other aspects of the new show, though, were met with tersely grunted ‘no comments’, but details about tickets will be announced at the end of July.

Apparently all involved have signed confidentiality agreements so draconian that if you were to ask whether it’s raining outside, the response would be ‘no comment!’

Director Tiffany, who won awards for the musical Once and the plays Black Watch and Let The Right One In, will work on The Cursed Child with choreographer Steven Hoggett and set designer Christine Jones.

Costumes are being created by Katrina Lindsay , who won praise from critics yesterday for her work on the new hit British musical Bend It Like Beckham, which is on at the Phoenix.

Joely Richardson will play Margaret of Anjou, who becomes queen of England when she marries Henry VI in The Wars Of The Roses, directed by Trevor Nunn at the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames from September 16

Joely's fifty and fighting fit

Joely Richardson said she’s feels like an athlete in training as she prepares for the biggest role of her career: portraying one of Shakespeare’s heroines, through a cycle of three historical plays she likened to Game Of Thrones, because of the blood running through it.

She will play Margaret of Anjou, who becomes queen of England when she marries Henry VI in The Wars Of The Roses, directed by Trevor Nunn at the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames from September 16.

Kare Conradi and Robert Sheehan also star.

The piece is a three-part conflation of the three Henry VI plays and Richard III, and Margaret is the only character featured in all segments.

The Wars Of The Roses was adapted by John Barton and Peter Hall, and staged at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963, with Peggy Ashcroft playing Margaret.

Joely said she came across photographs of Ashcroft ‘as the young queen, the warrior queen and the old Margaret torn apart by life’.

Having done a two-hour solo play as Emily Dickinson in New York, she said she felt she had the energy for it.

But she added: ‘Let’s be honest: Peggy Ashcroft is on her own plinth and is untouchable.’

However, Joely is enjoying the preparation.

‘There’s a hell of a lot more training to do,’ she explained.

She said she did a lot of the Bard when she was in a company at the RSC that included Jeremy Irons, the late Pete Postlethwaite, Janet McTeer and Imelda Staunton back in 1986. 

But she never got to work with Nunn, so she leapt at the chance this time.

‘I turned 50 this year and can’t imagine doing anything cooler in my 50th year than Shakespeare,’ she said, adding that after she’d finished Nip/Tuck five years ago, she had a desire to return to the theatre and also make films.

She has several pictures due for release including Snowden — Oliver Stone’s film about the whistleblower Edward Snowden — in which she portrays Janine Gibson, The Guardian newspaper’s U.S. online chief, who broke the story about the leaked classified information.