The Box of Delights



A Live Action TV Show based on a children's fantasy novel by John Masefield. It is a sequel to The Midnight Folk, and was first published in 1935. Expect strange 80s auto-tuning, music, and some splendiferous Nightmare Fuel.

Schoolboy Kay Harker is going home for the Christmas holidays. On the train he meets Cole Hawlings, a travelling Punch and Judy man who claims to be Older Than He Looks, and two clergymen with long names who rob him then turn into wolves.

When he gets back home he finds himself landed with the Jones Children who have been abandoned by their parents, and later the nefarious Abner Brown who wants to find Hawlins and steal his Box of Delights. Fortunately Hawlings escapes into a painting on a donkey, meets Kay in a dream and gives him the box. But all is still not well.

On his way to saving Christmas (or the Christmas celebration at Tatchester Cathedral) Kay meets giant mice, Pagan Gods, an evil governess, a cult, a boy in a waterfall and a Caroplane-Aeroplane.

The Box of Delights is a cult Christmas classic to the point where many people know whole sections off by heart. It's comparable to early Doctor Who (for more than one reason) if it had been directed by David Lynch in a good mood. It's also similar, if only in tone, to the BBC Narnia adaptations which were made around the same time and also for Christmas showings.

Fans are known as Boxers and can be recognised by their reactions to mentions of the Purple Pim.

It contains examples of


 * Age Appropriate Angst: Completely missing. Scrobled Governess? Robbers in your house? Golly, don’t be pathetic!
 * Badass Normal: Everyone
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Fat Joe and Foxy Charles
 * Church Militant: Abner. Sort of.
 * Clueless Detective
 * Cool Old Guy: Cole
 * Continuity Nod: When Kay and Peter sneak into the grounds of Abner's house in Episode 4: Kay mentions that if it was properly maintained, they'd have seen evidence of a gamekeeper, pheasants or owls by now. In The Midnight Folk, Kay encountered just those things in a wood.
 * Crazy Awesome: Cole
 * Creepy Child: Mariah. Sometimes Kay, but god, Mariah.
 * Cute Bruiser: Mariah and her gun.
 * Dark Messiah: Abner, arguably
 * Deceptive Disciple:
 * Defrosting Ice Queen:
 * Doting Parent: HA. NO.
 * The Eeyore: Peter ‘Purple Pim’ Jones
 * Eenie Meenie Miny Moai: Abner has a conversation with one. It tells him absolutely nothing useful, so he turns it upside down and starts yelling.
 * Exposition of Immortality: Abner explains his plans to Foxy Joe in his study, taking the time to show him and explain to him several medieval philosophy texts. Significantly, the textbooks have portraits of Arnold of Tode and Ramon Lully. Lully just happens to look exactly like Cole Hawlings.
 * Five-Man Band
 * Funny Animal: Rat, Mouse, The Wolves in one scene, The Pirates... Considering his view of Rat, Abner seems to be part of the Furry Fandom.
 * Gentleman Thief: Abner’s cronies
 * Gold Digger:
 * Historical Domain Character: Cole.
 * Large Ham: Abner, Abner- "WHERE IS THE BOX?"
 * Little Miss Snarker: Mariah, when she’s not just crazy
 * Lonely Rich Kid: Averted with Peter and presumably the Jones
 * MacGuffin: Averted for the box, Kay might be investigating it, but he needs it too
 * Most Annoying Sound / Most Wonderful Sound: Doo-doo- doo-doo doo doo doo, doo-doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo...
 * Not My Driver: Mariah gets kidnapped by villains pretended to be taxi drivers
 * Portal Picture: Cole turns a normal picture into one of these to escape.
 * Psycho for Hire:, maybe Rat
 * Ransacked Room
 * Sinister Minister
 * Stage Magician: Cole..?
 * Strange Pond Woman: Male version with the boy under the waterfall
 * Tomboy: Mariah, but not her sisters
 * Totally Radical: They have their whole own dialect
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made On Drugs?: To say the Box of Delights is trippy Needs a Better Description. That could refer to the eponymous box or the film itself.