Calendar Girls : Behind the Scenes : Sunflowers

Sunflowers (their seeds and their flowers) played a very important role in the play. 


They were John's favourite flower:

I don't think there's anything on this planet that more trumpets life than the sunflower. For me that's because of the reason behind its name. Not because it looks like the sun. Because it follows the sun. During the course of the day the head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky. A satellite dish for sunshine. Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it. Which is such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life. (John)

The flowers were also seen as a gift of hope from the Drama Group in these challenging times and so every night a single sunflower was put on each seat in the Garrison Theatre for everyone to take home along with the message of hope in the form of John's words. 



We are indebted to Ocean Kinetics who sponsored the sunflowers used both in the play and in the Theatre.


Each evening before the performance Karen (props) made sure that each bucket that was to be placed on the stage in the final scene was full and looked fabulous.


And the label of Hope themselves had to be tied onto each sunflower - over a 1000 of them! Great team work by members of the cast.




Photographs by Martin Summers, Austin Taylor and Jennie Atkinson