Sunflowers From CALENDAR GIRLS THE MUSICAL to Raise Funds for Blood Cancer UK

Sunflowers grown from seeds planted on stage during Calendar Girls the Musical will raise funds for the Stephen Joseph Theatre and for Blood Cancer UK.

The hit show can be seen at the SJT until 25 July before touring to Keswick, Ipswich and Bolton. In one scene, actors Christina Meehan and Neil Moors plant sunflower seeds in pots, using real seeds and real soil. 

The pots are replaced every so often as the seedlings start to grow, and the show's sound engineer Ben Vickers had the brainwave of using them to raise funds for the theatre, and for Blood Cancer UK, both registered charities.

Ben explains: “In the show, Neil has a line that goes 'Never let beauty go to waste!', and I thought, we shouldn't let these little seedlings go to waste.”

The seedlings have been replanted from their on-stage plastic pots into smarter terracotta ones and will be sold via the theatre's box office for £5, which will be split equally between the SJT for its work in the community, and Blood Cancer UK.

Christina and Neil play Annie and John Clarke in the show, characters based on the real Angela Baker (now Knowles) and her husband John.  When John died from blood cancer, Angela and her friends in the local Women's Institute were inspired to pose naked for a calendar which was originally intended to pay for a sofa for the relatives' room at Skipton General Hospital, but ended up raising over £5m, paying for a groundbreaking research programmel. The sunflower was John's favourite flower, and it featured in every photo on the calendar.

The story was turned into a film scripted by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, then a play scripted by Tim, and finally Calendar Girls the Musical by Gary Barlow and Tim Firth. 

The Calendar Girls the Musical sunflowers are only available in person from the SJT box office, which is open from 10am until at least 7pm every day except Sunday.