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More than twenty years ago, an epic production of drama, dance, music, and song was performed in the Botanic Gardens.

The production was called ‘Linnaeus – Prince of Flowers’ and was produced by Rosie Belton and devised and directed by British Director Toby Gough.

The play is based on the life of the great eighteenth century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, who as the older Linnaeus in the production was played by Michael Elsworth.

It was an extraordinary show – the audience was immersed in the story from the moment they walked in the gates – following Linnaeus on his epic journey  through the gardens whilst the performance took place around them.

Producer Rosie Belton says it was a production on a grand scale, ‘a carnival of epic proportions fusing theatre dance comedy and music.’

“It started at the gates of the Botanic Gardens in daylight,” she recalls. “And the stage was the whole gardens with about 16 different sites. As the audience walked through with the performers, and darkness started to fall, they encountered all kinds of theatre. There was dance, there were music quartets , choirs, there were Cook Island drummers, people in trees singing. It was extraordinary in every way.”

Now over two decades later, the performance is coming to the big screen.

When ‘Linnaeus’ was being performed for the second time in 2002, (the first being in 1996) – TVNZ cameraman Scott Munro, filmed the production over three nights. He did this in addition to footage used in TVNZ stories. He gave the resulting almost 9 hours of rough footage to Rosie for safekeeping. The tapes did a trip to the UK with Toby Gough and then were returned to Rosie around 2005.

The tapes were kept in her office at The Arts Centre.

“In 2008, I was approached by The Canterbury Museum collection team requesting to take into the permanent collection a history of The Christchurch Drama Centre, which I had founded,” she explains. “They came in and collected, over the next 2 years, 8000 pieces including costumes, set, photos, and videos, budgets, scripts and artwork. Thank goodness they did, because when the 2010 earthquake came, much was destroyed.”

The Linnaeus tapes remained in Rosies collection at her home but went into storage after the February earthquake.

In 2015 she received the tapes back, but being on a Beta format, she couldn’t view them. It wasn’t until 2021 that the tapes were digitised, and when she sat through the entirety of them, she realised it could make a great film.

“My husband, Mark, suggested I put the film together and try to get a reunion of cast and crew for a showing. Editing work began in early 2024 with the help of Luke Grierson from Ace Video, and Martin Howells and at that first, very rough, viewing I looked at the faces of the 12 people watching and despite its rough cut you could see it was received with great interest. We decided to go ahead and get a film finished to cinema standard. A huge process involving skilled post production work from feature film and television editor Richard Lord in Christchurch.”

The film premiered on November the 30^th to a full house at the Lumiere cinema.

“Michael Elsworth, at 92, was there and it was wonderful to see him,” says Rosie. “And all the cast who were able to attend – some of whom had been very young when they were involved.”

When she watched the final cut, Rosie was left with a sense of awe.

“What it did, watching it, was take me back to the production itself. The terrible stress of managing so many different and strong characters. So, when I look at the film part of me is exhilarated to see it all come back to life and part of me is like ‘Oh my god, how did I get through that?”.