Director Justin Audibert talks to What’s On about returning to the Royal Shakespeare Company to helm a stage adaptation of The Box Of Delights, a magical Christmas story written by John Masefield when he was poet laureate and published in 1935..

Christmas is coming, and it’s not just the kids who are getting excited. 
Justin Audibert, artistic director of Chichester Festival Theatre, is bubbling with enthusiasm about returning to the Royal Shakespeare Company to direct this year’s festive show, The Box Of Delights. He knows the RSC well - he’s previously directed productions of The Taming Of The Shrew, Snow In Midsummer and The Jew Of Malta - and can’t wait to bring the full weight of the Company’s resources, stage sets and technicians to bear on John Masefield’s story. 
Reimagined for the stage by writer Piers Torday, the show premiered at Wilton’s Music Hall in London, with Justin in the director’s chair. But as much as it earned widespread acclaim, he knew it could be done bigger and better. 
“We did it there with a company of eight,” he says. “It went really well and sold out, but it always felt like you could do a bigger and more spectacular version of the show. So I’m delighted to have the opportunity to do that on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage.
“The resources you have there, with the costumes and the sets, is like nowhere else. It’s a very special place. I was assistant director on a Christmas show once, and Stratford-upon-Avon’s a really special place in winter. It looks like Narnia!”
John Masefield’s tale also has a CS Lewis quality to it. It features a young hero named Kay Harker, who is charged with protecting the titular Box of Delights - a wondrous device with time-travelling powers - from a wicked sorcerer and gang of wolves... 
Oh, and just for good measure, Kay also has to save Christmas in the process!
Published in 1935, the book is routinely regarded as the seminal children’s fantasy novel, providing the inspiration and paving the way for the likes of Tolkien, CS Lewis, JK Rowling and Kelley Armstrong.
“So many of the things it contains, like phoenixes, magical boxes and old wizards, all turn up in their work. These kinds of mythical epic stories get reimagined for the generations.
“But one of the things I love about the story is that it was written in the early 1930s, and without Masefield saying it, the villains, the wolves, have this sense of fascism. They’re fascist gangsters essentially. And there’s something about that creeping authoritarianism and villainy and criminality that feels very resonant at the moment.”
Justin’s enthusiasm for the project is tangible and sees him excitedly jumping off at tangents and barely pausing for breath during our conversation. It’s truly endearing - if occasionally an effort to keep up with!
“The show features trains, boats, planes, mythical creatures, a good and a very bad magician, characters that magically turn into tiny versions of themselves and characters that transform into animals that fly through the air and swim in the sea. How exciting is that?!” he gushes.
“In most plays you have literally one or two set pieces - in this show you have one or two set pieces in every single scene! It’s absolutely bonkers. It’s like: ‘Oh, there’s a giant phoenix appearing!’; ‘Oh, there’s someone walking into a painting!’; ‘Oh, there’s a car turning into an aeroplane!’ It’s literally non-stop adventure! There’s no way you could come to this show and be bored - it’s not possible. So many amazing things happen.”
The production makes those amazing things happen by telling the story through the imagination of a child and via a creative mix of “the inventive and the breathtaking”, says Justin.
“We’re trying to do it from the imagination of a 10-year-old child, so we’ve really looked at it as a team. We play with loads of stuff - the style is that you can see the magic being made, but I think it’s all the more beautiful for that. 
“When we create a phoenix, the audience can see the puppeteers doing it, but that doesn’t make it any less magical. In a way, humans doing it means you can personify it even more, and really capture the breath, and how that phoenix would sing and fly and play and eat. That’s the joy and the magic and the sense of wonder.”
We both agree the stage version of War Horse is the touchstone for this style of production, where the audience is initially fascinated by the brilliance of the puppeteers before forgetting they’re even on the stage.
“That’s exactly it. And children understand intuitively what skill and technique is - they might not know what it is, but they get it. So if you’re executing these things to a really high skill level, they get it. And then they just get swept up in the magic of the story.”
And part of that magic, beyond the whizz-bang spectacle, is a genuinely involving narrative that the director believes will appeal not only to children but to the child in all of us.
“There’s nothing like seeing children’s faces light up at the magic in the show, but also connecting emotionally to the hero’s journey is deeply important.
“The heart of it is a boy, who has lost his parents and isn’t very sure of himself, being asked to save Christmas by protecting this magical box. You can see he’s already got a lot to deal with in his life, and the only way he’s going to get through it is by using his imagination. Because of that, I think it’s deeply, deeply human, and children can see themselves up on stage in a really beautiful way. Also, when you look at our cast, whoever you are, you can see yourself on stage as well, which I’m really proud of.”
Justin also hopes the story, and the show, will become festive favourites.
“Pantomimes are great - I love them as much as the next person - but this is a proper Christmas story about the triumph of hope over adversity. I think that’s a theme of most religions, and the show culminates - without spoiling the ending - in a big thing about releasing light. At this time of year, when it starts getting darker and colder and more miserable, any stories about that definitely feel pretty great.”

by Steve Adams