Brighton Year-Round 2024

The Box of Delights

Brighton Little Theatre

Genre: Adaptation, Children's Theatre, Family, Puppetry, Theatre

Venue: Brighton Little Theatre

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

With Steven Adams around, BLT can explore the dark side of chocolate at Christmas. And this is at least 70% cocoa. Quite delicious with a touch of sea-salt. Piers Torday’s 2017 adaptation of John Masefield’s The Box of Delights arrives at Brighton Little Theatre directed by Adams till December 14^th.

Sea-salt? Well it was written by the former sailor-turned-poet-laureate who wrote ‘Sea Fever’ and sea-themed so much of his poetry and novels. Here it’s all snow and floodwater. The Box of Delights is a 1935 sequel to the more sea-girt The Midnight Folk of eight years earlier.

It’s darker too, and its alternative title “The Wolves are Running” is the catch-phrase of circus man aka magician Cole Hawlings (a twinkling and wondrously-voiced Simon Hudson). It’s also inset as the train-sped dream of Kay Harker (Dixie Humberstone Ford, wholly engaging and believable), hero of The Midnight Folk.

Hawlings befriends Kay, entrusting to him the magic box he stole from wicked magician Abner Brown (Leigh Ward cackling and commanding too) centuries ago. And Brown wants it back. Instead he snatches Hawlings and then half the village. Kay must retain the box, rescue and fight back before Christmas, the 1,000-year celebration of Tadcaster Cathedral: if he fails, Christmas will be cancelled forever! So that’s where the phrase comes from.

This is a stupendous production effort, with two assistant directors Tess Gill, Leigh Ward (both acting), assistant to the director Glenys Harries-Rees, an eight-strong puppet team and Adams presiding over a large set and sound crew, with Beverley Grover helming lighting. Adams’ set involves a backcloth, screen-projection, and behind that an ever-shifting series of grilles, windows and  props like a talking gold head (that’s a bit rough on Holy Everett who’s not really disembodied).

Beside Hawling there’s always very active Barney Dog operated by Phaedra Danelli who’s also a Reporter. Having his pockets picked by two faux-vicars Charles (suave, seducing Daniel Carr) and Joe (Craig Hearn playing blinkered and slow-witted) Kay avoids kidnap by his former nanny Sylvia Daisy Pouncer (slinky, cackling Maria Evans who delights in witch-dark hazel centres perhaps) and finds guardian Caroline Louisa (a radiant cameo by Tess Gill). It means Kay can join sibling friends ferocious gun-slinging Maria (Alissandra Henderson) intrepid and fearless, and Peter (Sebastian O’Driscoll-Henderson) her exact whimpering opposite. Both prominent, they relish their contrasting double-act.

There’s distinct contributions from Suzanne Heritage as blustery Mayor and Butcher, Amy Lacey as kidnapped Paper Girl, Grocer and a Duchess seduced out of her pearls, a strong-voiced apparition from Rosa Alempour’s Herne the Hunter(who directs make-up, deeply effective here), a mightily baffled bishop in Adams himself, Georgia Mills’ tart-tongued maid Ellen, and a superb turn by Rosalind Caldwell as Rat. Rat had been an ally in The Midnight Folk, but convinced Kay will possess a dog, has turned. Caldwell snuffles throughout. Mike Skinner guys himself memorably as the most useless Police Inspector of the 1930s (an already distinguished list) as well as servant James. Olivia Jeffrey pops up as a Reporter alongside Danelli. Finally Tom Williams harrumphs through Ticket Inspector and a kindly Baker from whom Kay buys other delights.

With storytelling fluid, scene-changes deft and handled fluently, this is as magical as you might imagine. A BLT triumph by a chief wizard, but boasting one of the largest support teams ever assembled here, multi-roling and performing too. The whole two-hours-five skips by with an interval meaning no-one has to go to bed very late. Or dream the way Kay does. Unless they want to. The finest Christmas box imaginable, and the go-to for a seasonal show. If you can get in.

Director Steven Adams, Assistant Directors Tess Gill, Leigh Ward, Assistant to the Director Glenys Harries-Rees, Musical Director Ella Turk-Thompson, Dance Chorography Patti Griffiths

Stage Manager/Props /Puppets/Movement Mimi Goddar

Props & Puppets Team Vicky Horder, Janet White, Thomas Payne, Olivia Jeffrey, Teddy Baron, Jo Newman, Tom McSherry, Dawn Draper

Set Design, Construction & Painting/Sound Design Steven Adams, Scenic Design/Set Construction/ & Painting/ Special Props,  Set Painting Tom Williams, Set Painting/Costume Assistance Alison Williams, Set Painting Olivia Jeffrey, Patti Griffiths, Set Assistance Richard Harris, Set Construction the Cast and Crew

Lighting and Sound Design, Beverley Grover Lighting and Sound Operation Glenys Harries-Rees, Costumes Christine Fox, Costumes  Assistance Ann Atkins, Myles Locke, Make-up Rosa Alempour,

Rehearsal Prompts Charlotte Atkinson, Ingrid Mort, Production Photography Miles Davies

Published December 8, 2024 by Simon Jenner