A theatre company is basking in its own limelight after it staged an elaborate April Fool's Day hoax warning Suffolk ramblers and dog walkers to beware by publicising fake sightings of a bear roaming through a local forest.
Ipswich theatre company Red Rose Chain dreamt up the idea as a way of raising publicity for its open-air production of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale in Rendlesham Forest not far from the town.
The East Anglian thespians took inspiration from a tiny stage direction in the play, Exit, pursued by bear, which is regarded as one of the most famous parts of the script.
Fictitious witnesses relayed accounts to the local newspaper about how they encountered what appeared to be a bear while out walking in the forest.
One of the actors also produced a fake YouTube clip by downloading a real-life shoot of a bear from the internet, altering it with Photoshop and combining it with his own footage, which he'd created by running through the forest with his mobile phone.
He then uploaded a second bogus clip to YouTube, along with several fake comments purporting to be other eyewitness accounts.
The theatre wanted to arouse more interest in one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays. And it certainly succeeded by achieving widespread national coverage of the story.
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