Our talented actors take to the stage next week (Wednesday 11 - Friday 13 December) to perform the Christmas Classic, The Box of Delights, and we look forward to welcoming you into our converted Library Theatre for an early Christmas treat suitable for all the family. Tickets are available from TicketSource using the following link, or via the QR Code. https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whsb?sd=1

The story in The Box of Delights has ingredients familiar to any lover of fantasy fiction. 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 get 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 WRITER AND BACKGROUND

What do Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia have in common? They are all books that became successful films. They all feature creatures of all sizes, such as the Balrog and the House Elf (a good title perhaps for a children’s story). But most pertinently here, all three modern megahits draw something of their narrative from the seminal 1935 work, The Box of Delights.

Few have heard of this great classic novel and it has rarely been in vogue, but its influence has been profound – the book was innovative in launching ideas of flying cars and battling wizards, and an orphan boy at the midst of it all (sound familiar?).

The book is the second in a series featuring orphaned schoolboy Kay Harker, stories written by literary great John Masefield. Masefield was a poet, novelist, dramatist and journalist. Born in Ledbury in leafy Herefordshire in 1878, Masefield was fascinated by the natural flora and fauna of this beautiful area, building this rural and pagan life into his novels. After a career at sea and some time in New York City, Masefield returned home already a published poet at the age of 24. Living in rural Oxfordshire, and keeping bees, goats and poultry, Masefield continued to write, his 1923 edition of Collected Poems selling 80,000 copies and bringing him an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from Oxford University. In 1927, he published his first book The Midnight Folk, following this up in 1935 with The Box of Delights. Masefield was made Poet Laureate in 1930, and held this role until his death in 1967.

This modern script adaptation was put together by Piers Torday, the children’s author. Torday won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 2014 for The Dark Wild, and followed this up with the completion of his father’s unfinished novel manuscript The Death of An Owl. Torday first adapted The Box of Delights for performance at Wilton’s Music Hall in 2017, and the show was recently revived by the Royal Shakespeare Company, as their Stratford Christmas play of last year.