My first memory of “appointment to view” TV is as indelible as it is vivid. It was the final episode of the BBC’s adaptation of John Masefield’s The Box of Delights, which I caught only by imploring my mother to let me stay for another half an hour while visiting a friend. The early special effects in the style of Doctor Who were as stardust to my young eyes; I still recall the thrill of watching Robert Stephens (as the villainous Abner Brown) fall to his watery fate. It wasn’t only the state-of-the-art animation and the compelling performances that captured my imagination, but also the magic of the story.
Some 33 years later, when I found myself writing the first stage adaptation of this extraordinary book – which opens on Friday at Wilton’s Music Hall in east London – I realised quite how pervasive and enduring a spell the story had cast, not only on my imagination, but on a whole canon of childhood classics. In a curious way, Masefield is the unrecognised founding father of our current golden age of children’s literature.
The 15th poet laureate, born in 1878, Masefield grew up in the reign of Queen Victoria, but his final published poem marked the assassination of President Kennedy. Described by his biographer Muriel Spark as a “born storyteller”, he was sent away to sea at the age of 13, where he devoured that other children’s urtext, Treasure Island, on board the merchant ship HMS Conway. Surrounded by characters seemingly drawn straight from its pages, he not only learned how to rig a sail, but also how to spin a yarn.
The Box of Delights (1935) is a loose companion piece to The Midnight Folk (1927). They are the only two novels Masefield wrote specifically for children and they have the elastic, eccentric and winning charm of a mariner’s tale. Both stories pit orphan schoolboy Kay Harker against the greed, cunning and dark powers of the sorcerer Abner Brown, along with his bewitching associate Sylvia Daisy Pouncer.
The story springs from a simple idea: would it be possible to stop a cathedral service – and, by extension, Christmas – from happening? Whether by design or accident, he ended up writing the first original children’s adventure of the 20th century, blending the folkloric mysticism of Albion with the lurid criminalities of the jazz age. There are ancient wizards, Christmas feasts and talking animals – but also bang-up-to-date thrills: criminal gangs of jewel thieves, machine guns and time travel.
You can still see the book’s influence everywhere. The central trio – sensitive, orphaned hero Kay, who has a dormant gift for magic; the ferociously intelligent and independent Maria; and the loyal but slightly dim Peter (plus a flying car and a wise wizard mentor) – will feel familiar to readers of Harry Potter. Sylvia Daisy Pouncer, the witch in twinset and furs, feels like a direct ancestor of Dahl’s neighbourhood witches. Masefield had his children escaping to a fantasy world of deep magic through a domestic portal before CS Lewis ever opened his wardrobe; he was shrinking children on to toy sailboats before the borrowers were born. It could also be argued that the book’s exploration of history, time and space paved the way for children’s books to tackle the big ideas of the age. Before Northern Lights came The Box of Delights.
But, more than any of that, Masefield took the Victorian and Edwardian fantasy of Christmas – presents, crackers, chocolates, trees, carols – and reminded us of the midwinter feast’s true origins (without killing the festive fun). He piled the snow up outside the windows while the fire roared inside and let wolves roam in the shadows beyond. He made the feast of the nativity as much a time to celebrate the legend of Herne the Hunter, Arthurian legend and Roman myth, as the son of God. Masefield allowed children to imagine, at this most traditional and domestic time of year, a thrilling sense of winter mystery that felt as old as Christmas itself.
Before The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Dark is Rising and The Children of Green Knowe, and way ahead of Harry Potter and Northern Lights, Masefield allowed the darkness and mystery of old magic to seep into the modern light. For that alone, he should be cherished.
The Box of Delights is at Wilton’s Music Hall, London, from 1 December until 6 January.
