Acclaimed local theatre company Forest Forge has embarked on a UK tour with the world premiere of a new play – Kaite O’Reilly’s Woman of Flowers, an innovative retelling of an ancient Welsh story from The Mabinogion set in an ancient Forest.

The tour includes several local Hampshire venues as well as touring nationally.

The play was specially written for RADA-trained actress Sophie Stone who is deaf and is a story of desire, duty, deceit and revenge.

Woman of Flowers explores the lengths someone will go to in order to escape the life chosen for them through live music, dance, video, subtitles and sections of theatricalised sign.

It is presented in association with Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts.

The main character Rose cannot remember what came before the house at the edge of the isolated forest. Gwynne says he ‘magicked’ her out of the flowers, but she’s not so sure.

She plays the part of the perfect farmer’s wife for Lewis, who is kept firmly in place by his uncle Gwynne, and accepts her lonely existence, but when a captivating stranger is seen in the forest, Rose must decide on where her future really lies.

The cast also includes Thomas Brownlee (Anne of Green Gables) and Andrew Wheaton (Midnight is a Place).

Kaite O’Reilly wrote the part of Rose specially for Sophie after working with her on In Water I’m Weightless, a Cultural Olympiad commission with National Theatre Wales and Southbank Centre.

Kaite O’Reilly is a prolific multi-award winning writer whose work has been extensively performed in the UK and internationally.

She was the first playwright to be awarded the hugely prestigious Ted Hughes Award for New Works (for her new version of Aeschylus’s Persians for National Theatre Wales) and received three commissions from the Cultural Olympiad.

Kirstie Davis, artistic director of Forest Forge, said: “I have long been an admirer of Katie’s work and Forest Forge were the first rural touring company to produce her ground breaking play Peeling.

“I saw In Water I’m Weightless and asked Katie what she would like to write and who she would like to write for. The answer was this show and we both wanted Sophie to be the lead. We are so excited to be producing this extraordinary piece which will equally challenge and delight an audience in its look at people on the margins of society.”

Playwright Kaite O’Reilly said: “Inspired by the ancient Welsh treasure, The Mabinogion, and the myth of the ‘ideal woman’ created out of flowers, I wanted to plait together a domestic drama with intervals of heightened poetic theatricality, exploring different forms of storytelling, creating a world out of both spoken and signed language, between deaf and hearing cultures.

"Woman of Flowers represents a culmination of a long process of bringing together accessible theatre with a deaf culture aesthetic.”

Woman of Flowers continues the work of Forest Forge in creating nationally significant work for rural audiences.

The production will tour to a mixture of professional and community venues with the intention that the work is accessed by the widest reach of audiences.

The show is suitable for anyone aged 12 and upwards.

This show and tour was made possible thanks to 135 local people donating £13,741 in total which then helped secure a grant of £51,500.

This money not only supports the tour but additional outreach work and the company’s renowned youth theatre.

The show running time is 90 minutes with no interval.

  • Woman of Flowers tour dates:

Tuesday 7th October, Salisbury Arts Centre

Tuesday 14th October, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight

Tuesday 21st October, Ibsley Village Hall, Hampshire

Thursday 23rd October, Lighthouse Poole’s Centre for the Arts (BSL interpreted show)

Thursday 30th October, The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre, Havant

Saturday 1st November, Greyfriars Community Centre, Ringwood