THE BOX OF DELIGHTS (1984)

There’s not much made in the 1980s that can be described as timeless, but, for many, the BBC adaptation of John Masefield’s 1935 novel has become as integral a part of the festive season as sending cards or decorating the tree. The six-part children’s television production originally aired in the winter of 1984, scheduled so that the final episode aired on Christmas Eve. Even 40 years after its first broadcast, a community of thousands across the UK and beyond will be settling down to their annual rewatch of The Box of Delights.

Having missed it the first time around, I was about 10 years late for the train when, to create a festive atmosphere in the video rental store where I worked, I screened the omnibus edition. I was enchanted by its distinctive imagery and intrigued by the dreamlike narrative style. When the store finally closed down, that well-worn VHS copy was among the stock I kept for myself. It has been family viewing every Yuletide since, except for a few when we had no access to a screen or player. So, more than 20 viewings and yet we still look forward to seeing it again every year. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without The Box of Delights and its wonderfully evocative title sequence set to the music of Roger Limb’s masterful mutation of “The First Noel”. It’s become an integral and essential part of the festivities that’s guaranteed to set the mood to magical.

Over the years, the tapes survived a few repairs and eventually the glitchy VHS copy with its wobbly sound and varied picture quality was backed up onto DVD. So, this new Blu-ray release from BBC Studios is like seeing it afresh and a real treat to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary. Of course, it’s better than my old VHS back-up and really does look clearer than ever because the restoration process has upscaled it from the original HD video masters and the sound clean-up is impressive. However, the sensitive restoration process retained enough of that 1980s video fuzziness to make it feel like a truly nostalgic trip back to childhood, even for those who weren’t born when it was first broadcast.

Kay Harker (Devin Stanfield) is travelling by steam train, returning home to the country from boarding school for the holidays, when he meets an old Punch & Judy man on the station platform. A mix-up with his transfer ticket sets him on a magical adventure into a parallel reality, for the Punch and Judy man turns out to be an ancient wizard, currently going by the name of Cole Hawlings (Patrick Troughton). He entrusts Kay with his magical Box of Delights for safekeeping because, “the wolves are running,” and they “run him close with their new magic.”

On the next leg of his journey, Kay is swindled out of his money by a pair of crooks posing as curates and, when the train passes through the shadow of a bridge, he’s certain that one of them took the form of, not a wolf, but a giant fox. The first of many reality-rupturing surprises. Later, we will come to know the two men as the tall and slender Foxy Faced Charles (Geoffrey Larder) and the shorter Chubby Joe (Jonathan Stephens) who look like a comedy double act, along the lines of Laurel and Hardy. However, although they often provide some of the light relief, they are not comedians but criminals in the employ of the Reverend Boddledale, an alias that Kay sees through, recognising him as arch-villain and master of the Dark Arts, Abner Brown (Robert Stephens).

One wonders how he already knows Abner Brown, as well as his paramour Sylvia Daisy Pouncer (Patricia Quinn). Those familiar with the source material will know that The Box of Delights was written as a sequel to John Masefield’s 1927 novel The Midnight Folk, which introduces some of the main characters. Don’t worry, they’re stand-alone stories and can be enjoyed independently. Kay’s prior involvement with the antagonists provides some backstory that does a little of the narrative lifting, adding additional depth to the world-building. This helps in balancing the far-out fantastical elements which, believe me, are toned down compared to the books. One interesting difference is the names of toy figures from the first novel are recycled in The Box of Delights as the Jones children who come to stay with Kay at Seekings House for the holidays—Peter (Crispin Mair), Jemima (Heidi Burton), Susan (Flora Page) and Maria (Joanna Dukes).

Both The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights had already been adapted by the BBC for radio, also the ‘wrong way around’ with three of their six adaptations of Delights broadcast before the first adaptation of Midnight, in 1958. Each of the radio versions had proved popular, captivating a family audience and being remembered with affection long after listening. The poetic nature of its 1930s dialogue was suited to radio and, of course, imagination provided the special effects.

Director Renny Rye had worked with series producer John Bird previously on the television movie Ghost in the Water(1982) but was daunted by Alan Seymour’s screenplay for The Box of Delights, wondering how it could possibly be filmed without an unprecedented budget. Luckily, that’s what was on offer, and it was to be the most expensive of the BBC children’s productions with a budget of £1M. The idea of a television adaptation had been floating around for decades but it was generally thought to be unfilmable. However, by the 1980s, advances in technology made it a more viable possibility.

Fans of that decade’s Doctor Who will be familiar with Quantel’s Paintbox system for digitally manipulating video that could be combined with an electronic chromakey process. By today’s standards, the resulting VFX aren’t at all convincing, but they are perfect for The Box of Delights. Especially when used alongside an innovative mix of live action fused into beautifully hand-painted animation sequences by Ian Emes. It’s also surprising that the black magic elements are dialled-up to full rather than glossed over. It’s great to see a proper dark temple where animated demons are summoned and subjugated at a time when ‘tea-time occultism’ on television was frowned upon.

Children have no trouble using their imaginations to gloss over the composite lines and differences in image quality. Adults are enticed into remembering their childhood games of pretend and are thus pulled deeper into the fantasy world of Kay Harker, sharing his tenacious sense of childlike wonder. John Masefield may have inserted plenty of philosophical subtext into his stories, but at the core of The Box of Delights is a celebration of the power of imagination and the hope of youth. He presents us with a treatise on remembering the past and understanding history, without necessarily repeating it, while working towards a better future.

Hence one of the Box’s powers is being able to send its user back in time, but the box itself does not accompany the time-traveller. This is what happened to the Box’s original owner, Arnold of Todi (Philip Locke) who drank of the elixir of life and then escaped into the past where he was captured by Greek soldiers who marooned him on a desert island. Of course, escaping into the past now means that he cannot escape from the past—a fate that Kay only narrowly avoids for himself.

Its other powers are that it can make Kay go swift, enabling him to fly like in a dream, and to go small, shrinking him to the size of a mouse. In one adventure he goes small and befriends a mouse (Simon Barry) to help him navigate the drains to Abner Brown’s lodgings and at the same time goes swift to get them past a gang of pirate rats. He’s able to eavesdrop from behind the skirting board as Abner Brown interrogates Rat (Bill Wallis), another character that Kay already knows from previous adventures. And yes, Mouse is a mouse, and Rat is a rat but they are magical versions of the creatures—anthropomorphised, walking upright, wearing clothes, and talking—possibly created by witchcraft. Rat may not be as loathsome but is reminiscent of Brown Jenkin from the H.P Lovecraft 1933 story The Dreams in the Witch House, published six years after Rat’s debut in The Midnight Folk. Mouse is charming and childlike, Rat is sinister and filthy, but their animal costumes make no attempt to convince us that they’re anything but actors in suits and thereby give a nod to the British pantomime tradition.

It seems Abner’s henchmen also take on animal form as wolves on the dream plane. A key to engaging with the plot of The Box of Delights is to accept that at least some of the action takes place in a dream state that alters or averts events in waking reality. Kay is often asleep or unconscious during key sequences, sending his astral shadow into the past or into the Wild Wood with Herne the Hunter (Glyn Baker). This interplay of the dream and the real is a clever commentary on the role of imaginative fantasy itself and its value in directing thought and actions which can inspire real change.

Abner Brown has finally deciphered Cole Hawlings’s true identity as Ramon Llull and has been using his ‘wolves’ to hunt him down through time and across other magical realms with the intention of relieving him of the Box. Now, Ramon Llull was a real person from history who lived in the 13th-century, a renowned philosopher who believed that it was possible to unite all faiths around a universal truth. His writings influenced Roman Catholic doctrine and proposed the framework of computational logic that led to computers as we know them today.

He really did invent a version of a ‘box of delights’, a device intended to provide truthful answers to any given question using formal logic. This was proposed in Ars Magna / The Great Art, just one of the many books he wrote which includes instructions to make paper maquettes of his Lullian Circles—a mechanism of concentric rings that rotate and align in different combinations to indicate answers. These were the first mechanical devices intended to provide solutions from an existent data set. He hoped they would prove that common truths unite all philosophies and thus resolve conflicts between faiths. They were the inspiration for John Masefield’s Box and, even more directly, for Philip Pullman’s ‘alethiometer’ in the His Dark Materials trilogy.

One of the more explicit themes in The Box of Delights is the cooperation between philosophies that harks back to the early Celtic-Christian church when pagan practices existed alongside Christian beliefs and the boundaries between folklore and religion were blurred. Cole Hawlings says that he has celebrated ‘Christmas’ since pagan times but is happy to align with the Bishop to ensure the thousandth Christmas mass goes ahead at Tatchester Cathedral. Whereas Abner, posing as the Reverend Boddledale, uses the cover of a religious college to disguise the criminal activities with which he funds his quest for unrivalled power over all.

Which brings us to Robert Stephens who, despite being in what is ostensibly a children’s series, does not hold back one iota and turns in a powerhouse of a performance as a truly chilling villain. His Abner Brown can be seething with malice one moment, a demonic glint in his eyes, and then a hint of vulnerability may flit across his features that he quickly masks. Just compare his brilliant portrayal of Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) for a hint at his incredible range.

Despite the experimental and generally successful visual stylings, the success of the series is down to a very able cast. Every character is made interesting and individual, even bit parts and cameos like the hotel concierge Mrs Calamine (Joyce Latham), the Greek warriors (Julian Sands, Bruce White, Angus Kennedy) with their mismatched mix of regional accents, the railway porter (Len Edwards) who bellows one of the first lines of dialogue, and of course the local inept though well-meaning Police Inspector (James Grout) who does magic tricks with “those ‘ard boiled heggs,” and memorably explains with relish how to prepare a posset. The dialogue is superbly crafted with so many memorable lines that can be quoted and instantly recognised by fellow fans. Kay’s pal Peter gets a few of the most quotable including phrases like “the Purple Pim,” and “the fantods,” a personal favourite being, “wouldn’t have minded seeing an owl…”

UK | 1984 | 6 EPISODES • 179 MINUTES (TOTAL) | 4:3 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Special Features:

There’s an immediate double disappointment when unpacking this new Blu-ray. Firstly, the slipcase has the same graphics as the cover it reveals beneath—this seems to have become broadly acceptable now but is such a missed opportunity for some variant artwork—how about the wolf from the opening credits, that would have done the job. Why go to the expense of printing the card cover with just the same imagery and back cover text? Inside the case, the plastic clips designed to hold that little extra are bereft. There’s no booklet, no fold-out poster, not even a couple of collectible postcards. Really, what’s the point of a physical release if its physicality adds so little value to the experience with nothing to reward an enthusiastic collector who has already been waiting decades?

However, the two discs themselves more than compensate…

Disc 1

• Part One: When the Wolves were Running.
• Part Two: Where Shall the ’nighted Showman Go?
• Part Three: In Darkest Cellars Underneath.
• Part Four: The Spider in the Web.
• Part Five: Beware of Yesterday.
• Part Six: Leave us not Little, nor yet Dark.

Disc 2: Special Features

• ‘Time And Tide’—Making The Box of Delights (NEW, 102 minutes). This is an excellent documentary that is structured around director Renny Rye and Devin Stanfield reminiscing about the production while revisiting the key locations, beginning with their arrival at the Bewdley station platform on the Severn Valley Railway. Devin recounts how he started out in acting when he didn’t really have any ambitions to become an actor, hadn’t been to stage school, and Kay Harker was just his third role. He remembers working with Patrick Troughton and how impressive he was to perform opposite and how kind he was off camera. Renny Rye recounts approaching Robert Stephens to offer him the part of Abner Brown and receiving a full-on snog from the actor who was in drag as one of the Ugly Sisters in a pantomime at the time. Apparently, he loved the book and already wanted to play Abner.
  
  There are wonderful contributions from most of the key cast and crew, including a fascinating section with John Styles, the real Punch & Judy man who still has the authentic 1930s puppets that he used in the show and feature in the iconic title sequence. The sections covering the technical side of the production are a real revelation, such as the effort made to fill sections of St Catherine’s Docks in London with water to become the flooding dungeons under the Chesters Theological Training College. Above ground, it was filmed at Eastnor Castle where the pyrotechnics used for the finale caused a ceiling to collapse. The problems of filming in sub-zero conditions in the heavy snow in Aberdeen, including banana sandwiches that had frozen solid, were well worth it for the magical Christmas card scenes they captured.
• Trails & Continuity (NEW, 7 minutes).
• 27-minute archival interview recorded in 2004 with Devin Stanfield & Director Renny Rye.
• Clips from Blue Peter (12-minutes featuring Devin Stanfield, Simon Barry, and Patrick Troughton).
• Take Two (eight-minutes of school children reviewing the show and chatting) & Pebble Mill (10-minutes behind the scenes with the special effects team and a studio interview featuring Devin Stanfield).

Cast & Crew

writer: Alan Seymour (based on the novel by John Masefield).
director: Renny Rye.
starring: Devin Stanfield, Robert Stephens, Patrick Troughton, Geoffrey Larder, Jonathan Stephens, Patricia Quinn, James Grout, John Horsley, Carol Frazer, Crispin Mair, Heidi Burton, Joanna Dukes, Flora Page & Glyn Baker.