Curtain Up on floral colour

FIERY reds and luxuriant mauves, delicate creams and vibrant yellows '“ whatever the Bank Holiday weather, Christchurch Ladies' Supper Club can conjure up colour and excitement.

Curtain Up was the title of their 23rd three-day Festival of Flowers; a tribute to the enchantment of the theatre staged in aid of two worthy causes.

This year’s recipients will be the Meningitis Trust and the I Can Charity, which works with children with communication difficulties who find it hard to express themselves, understand words or speak in sentences.

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Those fiery reds made a dramatic curtain-up impact immediately the weekend’s many visitors got inside the church door.

Castanets and a fan – a blaze of roses and alstroemeria could only mean Bizet’s Carmen.

The gaudily-decked Christmas tree might have been unseasonal but together with red carnations, white lisianthus and an evocation of a wedding dress Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker danced into mind.

Doors to Porter’s Lodge, Studio and Quad led the eye to Charley’s Aunt while authentic characters spelled out traditional Japanese Noh theatre.

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Carnations, roses, gladioli, stocks and gypsophila illustrated Christ’s feeding of the five thousand as told in Medieval miracle or history plays.

White, blue, mauve - Les Miserables contrasted with the reds and greens of Pantomime and the playful white Something For The Interval displays at the end of each pew in which ice cream “flavours” were named after Christchurch ministers past and present.

A circular arrangement on a circular table surrounded by individual arrangements interspersed with miniature wickerwork chairs – Theatre In The Round, of course!

“Stone” columns, busts and masks set off by gladioli, roses and alstroemeria evoked Greek Tragedy while an easel-mounted playbill and contrasting purple, orange and cream arrangements told Old Time Music Hall’s colourful story.

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Cirque Du Soleil’s vibrancy contrasted with the blood red of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Around the Lord’s table, the Oberammergau Passion Play’s crown of thorns was complemented by lilies, alstroemeria, roses and carnations.

Fourteen diverse displays, imaginatively contrived and lovingly arranged were a delight to the eye, the enjoyment complemented by a pianist’s contribution. Lunches, refreshments, a plant sale and other stalls in the adjoining halls rounded-off this delightful Bank Holiday production.