< ott  |  DRAMA  |  COMEDY  |  FACTUAL  |  CHILDREN'S  |  LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT  |  FEATURES  |  INTERVIEWS  |  REVIEWS  |  BLOG  |  search >

CHRISTMAS SPECIALS
The Box of Delights
Wednesday 21/11/84, repeated Monday 22/12/86, BBC1
by Jack Kibble-White
December 2000
 

Email the author

More by this author

Hint of boys own stories, Victorian melodramas and programmes for schools form an oddly, personal and potent cocktail. There once was a strand of BBC entertainment that excelled in producing dramas inspired in equal parts by Enid Blyton, Conan Doyle and CS Lewis. They always had scary title sequences too, with sinister images hurtling towards camera. The Box of Delights was the last programme to be made by the BBC with a scary title sequence. It was to be - too - the last great family drama, and the blueprint for the lions, witches and magicians that have been (never completely satisfactorily) hoisted upon us ever since.

First broadcast some 16 years ago, The Box of Delights is less of a Yuletide story, and more of a concoction - or a posset, if you will - of fantastical imagery. Based on the 1935 book by poet laureate John Masefield, there is much about the author that resonates within the television production. Born, orphaned and raised in the rural idyll of Ledbury, Herefordshire, the Victoriana of The Box of Delights (which is actually set in the 1930s), coupled with the rustic splendour of hero Kay Harker's Seekings home must surely have been inspired by those childhood memories. Kay's adventurous instincts seem to be pure Masefield too. The author was - during his life - a senior petty Officer, a vagrant in the United States during the great depression, and an orderly at a British Red Cross Hospital in France during the World War I. His life, like his story, seemed to judder from one set piece to another. However, it is perhaps Masefield's passion for poetry that most strongly informs the narrative of The Box of Delights. It is a loosely plotted piece flitting from verse to verse, keener to evoke sensations then to pursue a coherent story.

In constructing the television adaptation, director Renny Rye, and scriptwriter Alan Seymour seem to have concentrated on extracting as much bedtime story imagery from the text as possible. As such, the drama is awash with concepts and images that have populated the healthy dreams of young children for decades. The Box of Delights is a greatest hits in this respect, bringing together corrupt vicars that turn into wolves, phoenixes, Herne the Hunter, Punch & Judy, paganism, isolation by the elements, steam trains and rats. The only thing missing from this classic collection of nightmare iconography is the appearance of a sinister clown. Such rich pickings and constant flitting from one imaginative set piece to another, ensures that we never notice the lack of a proper tale.

There are quieter moments too of course. Seymour (an Australian whose previous television experience had been adapting Edwardian autobiographies, or short stories of the British Raj) ably allows us to luxuriate in the traditions and manners of the time. A whole section concerns Harker's discovery of the function of a "posset" (a drink made of sweetened milk curdled with treacle, ale or wine), and although the "story" isn't progressed one jot, we are led to believe that there is some substance to these (seemingly motiveless) characters through these sequences. Idiosyncratic speech is also important to The Box of Delights. The eccentricity of the characters is portrayed through their use of language, for example Cole Hawlins referring to his canine companion always as "Barney Dog". Such linguistic sleight of hand imbues The Box of Delights - and its characters - with a particular warm, Christmas spirit.

Throughout Kay's scrobbles and nobbles there is a hugely entertaining television experience for the viewer willing to allow themselves to be swept away by the enchantment of it all. The Box of Delights reveals itself like the opening of Christmas presents. Each parcel evokes intrigue, suspense and finally delight when the gift is revealed. There may be no connection between the contents of each bundle, but they do all contain your most favourite things.