The official opening is not until tonight. But Ralph Fiennes's transformation from evil wizard Voldemort into a less-malign magician in Shakespeare is already a runaway hit at the box office.
The production of The Tempest with the Harry Potter star playing Prospero has taken more than £1 million in ticket sales, even before the critics get to give their verdict.
Fans have been queuing from 6.30am in the hope of getting seats on the day. The Theatre Royal Haymarket now looks set to do, for what was possibly Shakespeare's last play, what it did for Samuel Beckett when Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart appeared in Waiting For Godot - and created the kind of buzz associated with boybands.
Fiennes is not the sole draw. Only Fools And Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst will play the jester Trinculo, in the third production directed by Trevor Nunn at the Piccadilly venue.
But not all the cast members are famous. Sir Trevor plucked a minor member of his last cast to play Miranda, daughter of Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan who plots to return her to her rightful place in society. Elizabeth Hopper made her professional stage debut this summer as a courtier in Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead.
Arnold Crook, the theatre's chairman and a co-producer, said the combination of Fiennes and Nunn was "a magical recipe". "When you've got the right people in the right place you've got the chance of success."
But £1 million in advance sales can quickly go if the bookings don't keep coming, he added. "This is a nine-week run so you can't say we're going to earn vast bucks. But it's a pleasure."
Fiennes was last on the British stage at the National three years ago in Oedipus.
The Tempest is booking until October 29.
