By John Masefield, adapted for the stage by Piers Torday
January/February 2024
Directed by David Cumming
Kay Harker is heading home for the school holidays. Recently orphaned, he knows this Christmas will be different, but nothing could prepare him for the journey that lies ahead.
On the train he meets an old magician, Cole Hawlings, who charges Kay with safeguarding a wonderous device that has time-travelling powers. It’s an instrument that Cole’s nemesis, the wicked sorcerer Abner Brown, will stop at nothing to steal. And so when the old man mysteriously disappears, Kay faces the fight of his life. He must protect both the Box of Delights and, with it, the people he loves.
The Box of Delights’ timeless appeal is its genre-busting combination of classic children’s adventure – ancient folkloric magic, Christmas feasts and talking animals – with bang up-to-date thrills: criminal gangs, cars that turn into aeroplanes and, of course, teleportation.