Christmas Eve" ( Noch pered Rozhdestvom, 1832) by Nikolai Gogol (from Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka) Dr Philip W Errington, a senior specialist at Peter Harrington Rare Books, leading antiquarian specialists, and an expert on Masefield, has been working with the RSC as a consultant on The Box of Delights, which will be performed at the RST between 31 October and 7 January.

It seems that many other reviewers had not read 'The Midnight Folk' first, yet jumped into this, its sequel. They seemed confused, and seem to think that it is because they are reading a sequel. The book that always had the magic of a snowy English Christmas…. It’s still a lovely book, magical and funny, to be read by anybody of any age.” —The Horn Book

It starts well with some very atmospheric scenes – the men on the train and Cole Hawkins magic show are particularly good, as are the trips to the fort – but as it goes on it has become very repetitive and convoluted. How many times do we have to have Kay 'go small' to spy on Abner talking to himself in exposition to reveal endless details of the non existent plot? After a seemingly chance encounter on a train, orphaned schoolboy Kay Harker finds himself the guardian of a small wooden box with powers beyond his wildest dreams. And Christmas, after all, is just a dream. We spend twenty-four days planning, organising, imagining the perfect day and wake up on the 25th to discover it’s nothing like our vision. What matters, really, is not the day, but the dream that precedes it. The vision of Christmas defines the season. The Box of Delights is the vision of a children’s adventure book, full of fantastical feats and strange magics before revealing them to be airy nothings. With The Box of Delights we pretty much reached the peak of televised adaptations of classic children’s books. At the time it was the BBC’s most expensive children’s drama ever, with groundbreaking (for TV) special effects and a lot of snow. As an ending, that is; the book itself has plenty of faults along the way. It is a grab bag of early 20th century children’s book tropes, and some just don’t quite work, not at this remove. But some very much do, particularly the snowy, wintry, Christmassy bits.

a b Kingsley, Madeleine (17 November 1984), "A Box Full of Magic", Radio Times, pp.101–103 , retrieved 14 October 2017 Strange things begin to happen the minute young Kay Harker boards the train to go home for Christmas and finds himself under observation by two very shifty-looking characters. Arriving at his destination, the boy is immediately accosted by a bright-eyed old man with a mysterious message: “The wolves are running.” Soon danger is everywhere, as a gang of criminals headed by the notorious wizard Abner Brown and his witch wife Sylvia Daisy Pouncer gets to work. What does Abner Brown want? The magic box that the old man has entrusted to Kay, which allows him to travel freely not only in space but in time, too. The gang will stop at nothing to carry out their plan, even kidnapping Kay’s friend, the tough little Maria Jones, and threatening to cancel Christmas celebrations altogether. But with the help of his allies, including an intrepid mouse, a squadron of Roman soldiers, the legendary Herne the Hunter, and the inventor of the Box of Delights himself, Kay just may be able rescue his friend, foil Abner Brown’s plot, and save Christmas, too. The dream cliche' makes me feel like I've wasted my time somehow, ESPECIALLY because 'The Midnight Folk' was JUST as magical and hard-to-believe (if you don't use imagination), yet it was all proclaimed true. There was NO reason whatsoever to write this off as a dream. None. I'm disappointed. So little Maria gets kidnapped, and for days and days no one minds. No one is out looking for her. The police are informed, but they don't care either. "Oh, she'll turn up somewhere," they say. "Maria always lands on her feet. She'll probably join the gang, and teach them a thing or two."

Afterword

Dreamy and poetic … those descriptions are rather important in The Box of Delights. The novel was first published in 1935, and the author, John Masefield, was poet laureate from 1930 until he died in 1967. His prose trips along like a hallucinogenic daydream at times, especially when Kay takes advantage of the box's powers – he can use it to go swift, to go small, and to fall into the past, where he meets a succession of characters including Herne the Hunter of English folklore. Caught up in a battle between two powerful magicians, Kay fights to save not just the people he loves but also the future of Christmas itself. Richard Lynch (Abner Brown) and Stephen Boxer (Cole Hawlings) in The Box of Delights. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian