I ve shilled for this one before, but unlike "Die Hard" or "A Christmas Story," it has yet to make the jump from a holiday curio to a broadly beloved Christmas classic, so here s hoping I …
Devin Stanfield as The Box of Delight s Young Hero, Kay Harker
Credit: BBC
Director Renny Rye recalled feeling “terror” at the prospect of directing The Box of Delights. Adapted from the classic children’s novel by John Masefield, it was (by BBC standards in 1984, at least) a lavish, technically ambitious series: at the time, the BBC’s most expensive ever children’s series. “Every page you turned in the script and the book had yet another fantasy,” said Rye in a 2004 interview. “It was quite a challenge.”
Devin Stanfield, who played Kay Harker – schoolboy adventurer and wielder of the tricksy box – recalls filming the sequence that best captures the magic of the series. After jumping astride a (flying) pony, Kay soars into the air, leaving behind the relative normality of 1934, and lands in a burning, Arthurian encampment, where he fights off wolves with a sword, battling the beasts alongside King Arthur himself.