When writing In Flanders Fields in a shell-beaten dugout at the trenches of Ypres, John McCrae could not have predicted the legacy that his poem would inspire. Thanks to his harrowing and poignant ode to the fallen as well as the hard work of activists Moina Michael and Anna Guerin, the poppy is a symbol that has endured for a century as a call to remember and to pay tribute to those who sacrificed so much for so many. The Poppy Red, a brand-new play first produced to mark the centenary of the very first Inter-Allied Poppy Day, is the story of the birth of the scarlet emblem, its enduring legacy and why it continues to mean so much to those who live on.