Hugh’s students were immersed in the magic of the Harry Potter world at Warner Bros. Studios yesterday, as they went behind the scenes of the most successful film franchise in history. They even got to find out about some of the insider movie secrets that produced such special effects as the flying car, the troll in the girls’ bathroom, and of course, all those Quidditch matches (imitations of which can be seen in the University Parks, albeit in a more ‘down-to-earth’ fashion).

The Forbidden Forest especially captured students’ imaginations, and they were thrilled to compare the Great Hall on set to the real-life inspiration they had seen in Christ Church. As they were going round on their tour, students quizzed each other on their knowledge of spells (good ―or perhaps very, very bad― for students’ Latin), of events in the book, and names of the Harry Potter cast. One student kept under wraps until the journey back that he had read the first chapter of the first book and hated it; but he did say that the studio tour might tempt him to sample the film.

Back to reality at St Hugh’s, students taught each other about the popular sports from their own countries ―there was, of course, a minor debate over the two types of football (American and what some call ‘soccer’), but students found some common ground in novelty on the badminton court.