Miss Happiness and Miss Flower
Rumer Godden’s beloved children’s Christmas classic about hope, finding home, and two lost Japanese dolls. Dramatised by Kate Clanchy. Stars Sudha Bhuchar and Haruka Kuroda.
‘Is it another country?’ asked Miss Flower, and she cried, ‘Oh, no one will understand us!’
But Miss Happiness was more hopeful and more brave. ‘I think they will,’ she said.
Rumer Godden’s beloved children’s Christmas classic is dramatised by Kate Clanchy.
Starring Sudha Bhuchar, Haruka Kuroda, Lydia Wilson and Togo Igawa.
Set in the 1950s, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower shows, in tender miniature, a nervous post-war Britain squaring with its colonial past and making a space for difference.
No one had asked Nona if she wanted to be sent from India to live with her uncle and aunt in chilly, grey Topmeadow. Then, on the fifth day of Christmas, a mysterious late present arrives – two antique Japanese dolls – and Nona decides they need their own specially made Japanese dolls house. As Nona learns to reach out to those around her, even envious cousin Belinda will have to succumb to the dolls’ magic and learn new ways - or will she?
Narrator ….. Sudha Bhuchar
Miss Happiness ….. Haruka Kuroda
Miss Flower ….. Yuriri Naka
Mother ….. Lydia Wilson
Mr Twilfit ….. Togo Igawa
Nona ….. Niti Rowdur
Belinda ….. Astrid Palfreeman
Tom ….. Samuel Logan
Melly ….. Florrie-May Wilkinson
With specially composed and performed koto music by Melissa Holding.
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling
Sound Designer: David Thomas
Director / Producer: Amber Barnfather
A Flare Path production for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4