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 ...
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| 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 in The Box of Delights. "Are they 'doing their best'?" asks Peter wearily, "They always say they're 'doing their best'." Oh, Peter, after too many conversations with failing service providers, I hear you. In the main role, Devin Stanfield is an irreplaceably wonderful Kay: I can understand why Cole Hawlings sees the loyal and good-hearted adventurer in him.
Of course, the adult actors sadly have no excuse not to be wonderful, with the greats Patrick Troughton and Robert Stephens equally magnetic as Cole Hawlings and Abner Brown respectively. Even the bit parts with their terrible pirate accents or Yorkshire Greek warriors seem to be completely in keeping with a story which leaves the viewer utterly unsure what was real and what was dreamt.
And that leads us on to the final point. The ending. Oh, how I hated that ending as a child. I was furious that Kay had woken up and discovered that the whole thing was a dream. As a child, you see things very much in monochrome but, as an adult, there are far more shades of grey. Kay wakes up on his final train home: therefore, he may already have met Cole Hawlings at the earlier station and, indeed, we never see him check to discover whether the curates have picked his pockets.
We are told as writers to avoid that ending as though it were the plague, but imagine being able to make it so completely ambiguous that it leaves people talking about it days, weeks, months and years (even approaching a century) after it was first written.
If you haven't watched The Box of Delights I would strongly recommend you commit three hours to it over the Christmas period. The episodes are only thirty minutes each, but they will ignite a spark of Christmas joy and magic even in the Scroogiest of Christmas hearts.
Merry Christmas!
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