What became of the child star of The Box of Delights?

With pioneering visual effects, the production won three BAFTAs. Now, for its 40th anniversary, The Box of Delights is being released in new Blu-ray and DVD editions on Monday 25th November. It will also be repeated on BBC Four from Saturday 7th December.

The series starred famous actors such as Doctor Who’s Patrick Troughton as a kindly magician, and Robert Stephens and Patricia Quinn as the villains.

But what became of the boy star, Devin Stanfield, whose face lit up the cover of Radio Times but who gave up acting soon afterwards?

RT: What's it been like revisiting The Box of Delights after 40 years?

Devin Stanfield: It’s been an odd experience. I’d put the whole thing to bed and moved on with my life and hadn't really given it a great deal of thought, to be honest. It's just kind of a childhood chapter. So revisiting it was very interesting. I've said no to almost every request for publicity or interviews over the years.

RT: Chris Chapman has produced a new feature-length doc for the Blu-ray/DVD – Time and Tide: The Making of The Box of Delights. How did you get involved with that?

Devin Stanfield: When Chris phoned me about doing something, I said that I’d already done the 20th anniversary. Back then I’d met Renny Rye [the director of The Box of Delights] at Pinewood and we shot a little interview for a DVD extra. I didn't have much to add to that.

But then when Chris said he’d actually like to get me and Renny out on location, I thought... well, I have a huge amount of respect and love for Renny, so I said, "OK, I'll do that." Really, it was just a chance to spend the weekend with Renny and catch up over a few glasses of wine and talk – and oh God, did we talk! Probably more than Chris would’ve liked. Couldn't shut us up in the end, so yes, that was lovely.

RT: What parts of the country did that take you to?

Devin Stanfield: We filmed a good deal of it around Hereford and the Wye Valley. That's where the book’s set and where Masefield lived at one point in his life. So we were at the Severn Valley Railway, we went to Eastnor Castle and Hereford Cathedral. And the house where we shot Seekings [Kay’s home], which is a beautiful architectural oddity somewhere in the countryside.

So yes, it was an evocative trip down memory lane. I think maybe walking those paths again as a grown-up – having left all the baggage of childhood stardom behind – was quite cathartic.

RT: Chris says he interviewed about 30 people – cast and crew – who were involved in the 1984 production.

Devin Stanfield: He even interviewed my mother! It was the high point of her year, I'm sure. Yes, they dug up a lot of people. Obviously, some of the older cast are now sadly dead, but he got nearly all the key cast and technical people.

RT: What was it like acting alongside Patrick Troughton as a child?

Devin Stanfield: I'd been on camera before and had just played the best friend in Chucky for Thames Television, but I'd largely been acting against other children. I hadn't had a lead role or chunky scenes.

So the first time I realised what I was up against was quite early in the shoot on The Box of Delights. Patrick and I were at the train station and we did that very close-up scene. I can still remember to this day the intensity of him, how suddenly he came alive as this almost mesmeric presence. The twinkle in his eyes.

I was never a good actor of any kind and a lot of what you're seeing in those scenes is my reaction – it's pretty much genuine. I was so lucky to have those actors because they did all the heavy lifting, and a lot of the time I was wrapped up and carried by them. They were so giving and so patient, and they allowed me to feel my way into the right emotions. They carried me along, basically. They were all very helpful to a very inexperienced and largely talentless little boy.

RT: What age were you at that time?

Devin Stanfield: I had my 13th birthday on set, so I was 12 quite early into the shoot.

RT: What are your chief memories of making the series?

Devin Stanfield: It was a very big thing to take on. It was a year of my life. It got extended too because I got chicken pox, there was a strike and there were technical difficulties, snow, all kind of things. So it took a lot more of my time than I was anticipating and a lot of it was me working alone, or working to nothing on chromakey [in a blue screen studio for special effects]. Or working in the freezing cold in snow and canals in the dark, or in the studio in a Norfolk suit, sweating constantly.

The other kids came in and out and did odd scenes, but I think I was in 95 per cent of the shots. It was a relentless schedule. Quite hard work. It felt like a job, though I realise I was lucky to be doing it. Looking back recently, I appreciate the opportunity it gave me to work with such extraordinary people – more on the technical side than the actors.

RT: So that steered you away from acting?

Devin Stanfield: I grew up in a theatrical family. My grandfather Leslie Sands was quite famous as a playwright and actor, and my mother was an actress and my father was a production manager. So I was never really enraptured by the business. I knew it was a s**t thing to do, and I wasn't particularly keen to get into that line of work, because I didn't feel I was talented.

I now realise that while I was on set all that time, I was watching legends like Renny Rye and an absolutely stellar team at work behind the cameras. The very best the BBC had. The actors basically sat in their caravans for 90 per cent of the time, then got hauled out and told to do something, and then went back again. Whereas the people actually driving it and making the decisions were at the heart of it all, and also the last ones up in the bar drinking and having fun.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, being exposed to that had an effect on my later career. For years, I was a technical director and a production manager in theatre and television. Now I run production for one of the UK's major scenic companies, putting together big things like X Factor. We did the set for the BBC's Olympics and just finished Coriolanus for the National Theatre and The Elixir of Love at the Coliseum. So quite large-scale, prestigious stuff.

RT: In 1984, Radio Times gave The Box of Delights a haunting cover with you as the focus. How did it feel as a child to have your face plastered on every newsstand?

Devin Stanfield: Total nightmare! I'm a relatively private person and have no desire for fame or celebrity. So I was very visible. And I didn't go to a private school. I went to a very normal comprehensive. So I was a target with that haircut, and as soon as I turned 15/16 I grew my hair as long as I could and turned suitably rebellious. I was keen to shake that off.

RT: So you were you teased by your schoolmates?

Devin Stanfield: Horribly. I don't think child stardom is a particularly healthy thing. In the end it probably did me more good than harm, but it could definitely be quite a difficult thing to live with to be recognised not just at school but in the street.

RT: Your family must have been proud, though. You said your mum is pleased to be on Chris’s new documentary.

Devin Stanfield: Yes. And when Chris started asking me what I’d got in the way of memorabilia and photographs, he was under the impression that the box was lost. That none had survived. But they’d given me one at the end of the shoot, and it’s been at my mum’s ever since. I collected the box so that Chris could film it. He was quite taken aback that it was just shoved in a rucksack. "It’s not even wrapped!" It had suffered worse on set. He told me that it's probably worth quite a bit now.

RT: The Box of Delights is still very popular – some people love it so much they watch it every year.

Devin Stanfield: Coming at it now as a grown-up and being less defensive about it, I'm touched and surprised by how it has endured and by the loyalty of the fanbase. It's lovely that it means so much to them. I'm proud and pleased to have been involved in something that has clearly given so many people so much happiness and pleasure.

The Box of Delights will air on BBC Four on Saturday 7th December from 7:10pm.

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