It's Boxing Night in Bruddersford and the pantomime's a disaster waiting to happen. The company's second-rate, the theatre's half empty, and the actor playing the Demon King hasn't turned up. Then he does—and suddenly everything changes. The performance takes on an authority it never had in rehearsal. The comedy gets sharper, the villain more convincing, and by the end something has happened that nobody can quite explain.

Priestley wrote this in 1931, drawing on his Bradford theatre days and the tradition of the pantomime devil who enters from stage left. The BBC adapted it for radio in 1962 with Ian Wallace, adding Radiophonic Workshop effects to a story that's as much about provincial theatre life as it is about the supernatural.

First published 1931. BBC Home Service radio adaptation December 1962.

Author: J. B. Priestley (1894–1984), Bradford-born novelist and playwright. Best known for The Good Companions, Angel Pavement, and An Inspector Calls. During the war his BBC radio talks reached audiences of 16 million.

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