Harry Potter and the Gripes of the Curmudgeons

"It was 25 years ago, and it's for children. I think it's for children."

When fans told Margoyles they were having a Harry Potter-themed party she thought, "What's their first night of fun going to be?"

While Margoyles was grateful for the money she was paid for playing Professor Pomona Sprout in the film series and enjoyed the part and the people, she said, "It's over."

Ever the provocateur, she said in another interview that "if your balls have dropped, then it's time to forget about it. You know, go on to other things."

Like Charles Dickens, perhaps (she's done a one-woman show on Dickens' Women).

But a lot of people do not agree. And many of them are adults.

Expressing much the same sentiment as Margoyles, in 1986 William Shatner, James Tiberius Kirk himself, was in a very funny sketch on Saturday Night Live in which, fed up with geeky superfans' obsessive questions at a Star Trek convention, launched a scathing tirade beginning, "Get a life, will you people!" It was comedy, but you can't help thinking it was something he'd wanted to say for a long time.

While these may be noble sentiments, they have no chance of being heeded by many.

Star Trek has gone from a somewhat derided nerds' obsession to a mainstream megafranchise. Star Wars was a massive hit from the start, though like Star Trek and Harry Potter, it has its diehard devotees, many of them longtimers, and adults.

The "kidult" phenomenon has been around some time and is only getting bigger (some might say worse). Nostalgia no doubt drives some of it. But what used to be relatively niche pursuits associated with children and adolescents - like video games and comic books and the resulting movies and TV shows and franchises - have become interests, even obsessions, for all ages: not guilty pleasures but pleasures to be declared, loud and proud.

Adults as well as adolescent "Twi-hards" got absorbed in the supernatural love triangle that was the Twilight series (were you Team Edward or Team Jacob?)

The fact that an unauthorised show like Potted Potter - a comic recap of the Harry Potter saga by two actors - can tour internationally multiple times is indicative of just how much interest there is in, and of how much content can be generated from, a piece of intellectual property.

And, to be fair, there are now generations of young people discovering these stories, often being introduced to them by their parents who loved them, just as happened with Enid Blyton, or Disney movies, or any number of other authors, films and other cherished memories, many of them also sniffed upon by self-appointed arbiters of taste and quality.

Books kids and for that matter adults want to read encourage them to keep reading - no mean feat - and they, along with films and other media do their bit in sparking imaginations and providing pleasure. They shouldn't be the only things people consume, but as part of a varied cultural diet, they arguably do more good than harm.

While some might bemoan that people are not, as the apostle Paul wrote, "putting away childish things", most people are surely capable of both enjoying and sharing these pleasures - as well as partaking of others - and carrying on with the responsibilities of adulthood, too.

Potted Potter is on at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre, from April 4 to 7. See: canberratheatrecentre.com.au.