Just as the 26th anniversary since the first Harry Potter book was published, it’s time to take a look at another of the recently released new LEGO® Harry Potter sets. Diagon Alley is filled with an array of whimsical shops and one of the most colourful is Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes joke shop. Oddly, the store was recently included in the large-scale LEGO recreation of Diagon Alley. So what does this smaller version offer compared to the 2020 version? Let’s find out with a look at set 76422: Diagon Alley – Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.
Product Details
Set Name: Diagon Alley: Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes | Set Number: 76422 | Pieces: 834 | Theme: Harry Potter
RRP: £84.99/$89.99/94.99€ | Number of Bags: Bags x 10 | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: Sheets x 2 | Minifigures: Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Romilda Vane, Lavender Brown and an Owl Post worker, plus an owl figure, Pygmy Puff & Fanged Frisbee
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online & General Retail
The set actually features two buildings and the first of them you build is the Owl Post Office. This building is roughly the same height as the Wizard’s Wheezes shop, but it is super narrow. It’s only 6-studs wide, which means access to the interior is very limited, in fact, I’d go as far as to say the inside is inaccessible. But there is a little detail, which includes a stack of post and a panel with a sticker on it, which represents a notice board. To be fair, although there is little to the interior, the facade of the Owl Post building is rather nice. It features a few perches for the owl to land and includes a golden owl as part of the building signage. The building also features a slight play function, with the ability to pop a letter through a gap in the roof. The Owl Post Office building can be connected to either side of the joke shop via a couple of Technic pins, but I feel it looks better separate.
The Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes shop is one of Diagon Alley’s most unique stores, both inside and out. This is partly due to the building’s odd colour scheme of light purple and orange. They are certainly contrasting colours, which give the shop front an eye-catching appearance. Much of the building’s exterior is made up of bay window frames, these do employ a little repetition to the build, but they look quite nice. The central tower of windows also houses the store’s most unique feature, a large figure who is partly protruding from different sections of the shop’s windows.
Inside is even more colourful, it has a much more open space compared to the version of the shop included in the Diagon Alley set, although it only features two floors and no staircase. The difference in space also allows the set to include some details that are not found in the other version such as a Puking Pastilles display, Umbridge on a Unicycle, Pygmy Puffs and Sticky Trainers. It also features many other famous products recreated with various 1×2 bricks adorned with stickers. It’s a fun-filled space which does a good job of capturing the look of the store from the films.
The set features seven minifigures, with most of them members of the Weasley family. Once again referring to the Diagon Alley set, both Fred and George use the same torsos from that set. Each of the other torsos elements used for other characters are currently unique to this set. Romilda Vane hasn’t appeared in a set before and Lavender Brown is a fairly rare character. It’s nice that the Harry Potter sets are expanding the character counts in the various sets.>
Overall
This is an odd set as it’s both smaller and bigger than the Diagon Alley version of the location, it’s also more detailed and less details than the Diagon Alley set. That may seem impossible but that’s the only way to describe it. The overall set isn’t as contained as the other version so it has a slightly bigger footprint but the overall structure is created from fewer bricks. This makes the interior more open and thus it features a few details the Diagon Alley version lacks, but it also means the interior is only two floors. So it is neither a better nor worst version compared to the Diagon Alley building. As well as the joke shop, the set does include a smaller building, which represents Hogsmeade’s Owl Post Office. Due to the size of the building, it’s not overly detailed inside but I love the exterior. It is a fun set to build, with a little repetition in places. It does have a fair few stickers, but these add to the detail. I wasn’t expecting to review this or any of the other LEGO Harry Potter Summer sets as they just arrived randomly. There’s a couple more of the recently released sets to take a look at, so stay tuned for those.
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This set was provided to BricksFanz.com by the LEGO Group for review purposes. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Warner Discovery. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
