I was six years old in December 1984. For six precious weeks, I counted down the time until I could see the next instalment of ‘The Box of Delights’, the BBC’s flagship festive children’s programme. It was the greatest show I had ever seen, and it became indelibly ingrained in my memory banks.
Throwing an unusual amount of money behind it, the production sought promising young director Renny Rye to bring it to life. It cast Patrick Troughton, best-known as the Second Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’, as the benevolent Punch and Judy man Cole Hawlings. He is secretly, like the Time Lord, several hundred years old. Another high-profile piece of casting was theatre legend Sir Robert Stephens who plays the villainous Abner Brown, alongside his wife Patricia Quinn as the wicked governess Sylvia Daisy Pouncer.
Almost four decades later, I retain strong recollections of specific moments from the series that impressed me so much on my initial viewing during childhood. What is it about this magical series that burnished it into my brain, and why does it remain such a beloved TV classic?
Rediscovering ‘The Box of Delights’ through adult eyes
First a confession. My six year-old self didn’t merely think that ‘The Box of Delights’ was the greatest thing he had ever seen, he also believed that it was the greatest thing it was possible to see. Then I bought a copy on VHS in 1997. I hadn’t seen it for over a decade and took it home with trembling hands, preparing to be charmed and enthralled all over again. Oh dear. Never go back, they say. To my jaded late-teenage eyes, it was embarrassing. Childish, with overly-mannered child actors and a whole heap of not-so-special effects. Not only that but Patrick Troughton disappears for about half of the story! An early life lesson that the nativity of childhood can make the ordinary seem like more than it is. Or was I just being too cynical by half? Had the magic of Christmas evaded me? Was it too soon to appreciate the power of nostalgia?
The magic rekindles on DVD
Like the Phoenix in the fireplace of the Drop of Dew, my love for this old show would first fly high, then burn down, and finally rekindle into a passion that sustains. When the 20th anniversary DVD was released in 2004, I was 26 years old. A little wiser perhaps, but certainly old enough to be drawn back to the serial as soon as I recognised the key moment between Kay Harker and Cole Hawlings on the cover when the old man asks the boy to be the custodian of his magic box. Somewhere in between the many house moves I endured as a student, the VHS had been lost, so another gap of half a decade or so had gone by since my last encounter with it on flickering video tape. This time, I didn’t care a jot about the dated special effects. If anything, I realised that they add to the charm. Shooting the entire production on video rather than film (making it much easier to add special effects) pinpoints it to a specific epoch. Although there are some obvious weaknesses (compare the brilliance and fast pace of episode one to the plodding and inconsequential episode three) I immediately fell back in love with the serial. Now I rewatch it with immense joy every Christmas! A Yuletide without ‘The Box of Delights’ would surely be the purple pim!
Discovering John Masefield’s classic novel
It never occurred to me in 1984 that the story was set in the past. I just assumed that tweeds and plus fours was just how posh kids dressed. It was the time before smartphones and internet access. Holiday entertainment was all about getting outdoors, building snowmen, following foxes’ tracks and worrying about scrobbled chums. The BBC made the serial to coincide with the 50th anniversary of John Masefield’s classic book. Until recent years, I didn’t seek out the book out of concern that it might pale in comparison to the series. What a mistake! Masefield wrote beautifully and with an extraordinary breadth of imagination. Although the series is fairly faithful to the book, there’s plenty that they leave out simply because it would have been unachievable on screen. That’s the reason why the TV adaptation uses animation in parts. As a poet, there is a rhythm and lyricism to Masefield’s words that keep you drawn into the world of his story. Not everything is explained, just as it needn’t be where there’s a mystery. But those memorable phrases like “the wolves are running” and “time, tide and buttered eggs wait for no man” are all present and correct. The characters from the series, including incidental ones such as the boy under the waterfall, the bronze head and the animus creature hailed by Abner Brown to wreak chaos were all created half a century before the series was brought to our screens. Masefield’s earlier book, ‘The Midnight Folk’, is also worth seeking out (if you’ll pardon the pun). The protagonist of the 1927 novel is also Kay Harker and the villains are Sylvia Daisy Pouncer and Abner Brown. If you ever wondered why Pouncer says that she knows the boy in the series, then you’ll find out why from these pages! Other characters are present too, though Rat is an ally rather than an adversary, and the names of the Jones children appear, but in a rather different context… Masefield was a superb writer and the series was an honourable attempt to bring his story to life on the small screen.
‘The Box of Delights’ lives on
I have now added some rare editions of Masefield’s two Kay Harker novels to my bookshelves and read them with relish, now falling in love with the works of the writer as well as the TV adaptation. This year, as is traditional, I have watched the series in the run-up to Christmas. The first episode and the final episode are flawless, with focussed storytelling and much to engage the viewer. The episodes in between are charming and beguiling, with some outstanding moments such as the cliffhanger that sees the shrunken children on a toy sailing ship heading towards a weir. An inspired piece of direction sees Kay grinning in delight with the adventure of it all. There’s a loveable performance by James Grout (later Inspector Morse’s boss) as the local Police Constable, who had clearly read Masefield’s book when preparing for the role. The barking mad solo adventure that Kay takes into the past in episode five, that in dramatic terms turns out to be completely pointless, entertains rather than bothers me. Even the relatively plodding episode three has enough festive spirit to keep me wanting more. After completing the series, it’s the magnificent conclusion that lives in the memory. The deeply spiritual climax, when Kay, Cole, the Bishop and their friends make it to Tatchester Cathedral in time for the Christmas Eve service, is moving and rooted in an era that has all but died out, certainly in television drama. That it appears normal in ‘The Box of Delights’ is why it is special, nostalgic and rooted in tradition all at once. I now understand why I loved ‘The Box of Delights’ as a child, and love it still well into adulthood.
Buy John Masefield’s ‘The Box of Delights’ as a novel or the 1984 TV series on DVD.
