The Box of Delights

The Box of Delights to my brother and I is as traditional at Christmas as The Wizard of Oz or indeed The Queens speach!! Every year since 1984 we have "delighted" in watching The Box armed with sweets in our formative years and beer in our latter. Even now as grown men missing The Box for 1 year would be regarded as sacrilige. To us The Box epitimises Christmas with its magic and mayhem,villains and heroes and ultimately allround Christmassy feel. The casting is outstanding, try to read the book after watching the show and you can't imagine anyone else in the roles. Devin Stansfield is excellent as Kay,unfortunately it appears it was the pinnacle of his career as he doesn't appear to have acted since. The late great Patrick Traughton and Robert Stephens excell in their roles and it is in The Box I'll remember them not Dr Who or Shakespeare. The musical score is fantastic the composer has captured the spirit of a pre-war Christmas amazingly well, the version of The first Noel is magical. We love The Box because it enables us to hang onto our childhood.As there are 2 of us it enables us to protect each other from the mockery of our respective spouses who believe we're like a couple of kids.Both have tried and failed to take our one and only recording to tape over it with Coronation Street. Now wouldn't that be the Purple Pim........

I first watched this film when I was 5 or 6 (1984/1985), on TV Ontario (TVO), here in Canada.

Over the years I have only remembered vague details about it, including that one of the words in the title was "Box". However I did remember certain characters and the basic plot, surrounding a "magic" box and knew that I really enjoyed it.

A few weeks ago I decided to do a title search here on the IMDB using "Box" as a keyword, sure enough about 20 minutes later I had found this wonderful film from my youth.

After seeing that it was not available on tape here in North America, I placed an order for a British copy and was able to watch the film for the first time last evening, it is just as wonderful as I had remembered.

Thanks IMDB for helping me to re-visit the amazing box of delights!

I have not been quite so excited watching a series in a long time, thanks to the bbc wanting re-releasing of all their best children's drama this delight is now on DVD.

Its very hard to think of things that haven't been said about this brilliant drama but i'll try.

As we are coming closer to Christmas i would urge anybody who loves to get into the festive mood to buy this as everything that you'd associate with xmas is here and yes it is slightly intimidating if you weren't born into a middle class background as all the children go to boarding school and speak in possibly dated plummy tones but the story is what counts and it's a cracker.

It's adventurous, fun and a little scary (with wolves howls in the air). The acting in the principal actors is spot on and the thing thats so great about it all is you never feel like you're being talked down to as a child, this explains why it's so popular with nostalgic adults Ed Trotter

I loved this series and I was 25 when it was shown, I taped all episodes and watched them over and over, I can only lament the loss of the tapes but I can thoroughly recommend "The box of delights" to anyone who hasn't lost their childhood magic. Patrick Troughton is one of my favorite actors and is marvelous as is Robert Stephens in a dastardly role, the effects are very good considering the budget with the BBC and the acting is great. The story is a classic, although I had never heard of John Masefield until this series much to my chagrin. I know that children of all ages will enjoy it.I know I did and would again.

The Box of Delights has been one of my favorites since it was first televised. At the time I was less than five years old... since then I have watched it at least once every year... it has never lost it's magic, and I am sure never will. The only worry I have is that the video tape may soon wear out!

If you get the opportunity watch it, it will be worth your while.