Kay Harker and Cole Hawlings Picture accessed via BBC There are few things more Christmassy than the opening few bars of the theme tune to The Box of Delights . In fact, the tune is based on Victor Hely-Hutchinson's Carol Symphony and had been used in radio adaptations of the same novel years earlier than the 1984 television series. Clearly, everyone already knew that you just couldn't improve on that sound to evoke the magic of Christmas which - for me and for many - is so wonderfully explored in John Masefield's story. As a viewer, one of the things I enjoy most about the television series of The Box of Delights is the acting. Child actors are precarious things: too sweet and they're almost unbearable to watch, not sweet enough and they're unbelievable. They must walk that fine line between the two, and it is a perilous one! Most young actors fall into the first category, where their on-screen presence is almost dangerously saccharine. Not so the child actors ...
Thank you Judith Crow for writing this book review. Mysteries and Misadventure - Tales from the Highlands by Aaron Mullins I do like short stories. There’s just something about having the option to dive into a book for five minutes and emerge having completed an entire story. Aaron Mullins' Mysteries and Misadventures is a collection of short stories which are inspired by the area we live in. It always helps when you can put yourself in the place where the stories are set but, never fear, Aaron has a genuine gift for descriptive writing which allows people from any place to put themselves in the settings he skilfully creates. I regularly do the “first read” of the Crowvus Christmas Ghost Story competition, meaning that I can be reading over a hundred supernatural stories in a very short space of time. That makes me choosy and means I come at any such stories with a very critical eye. Mysteries and Misadventures does stand up well in this light. Again, that descriptive writing is wh...