The Bear Truth

Ok...There wasn't really a bear in the Forest... Yep, that's the truth. It wasn't a real bear, nor was it an actor dressed as a bear (and no, it wasn't a captured Russian spy left over from the cold war!). It was in fact just the result of some mobile phone footage and a few hours on photoshop. So what was it all about? And why did it cause such a stir involving the majority of the national newspapers and reactions ranging from utter belief and wonder to outrage? Well, before we talk about that maybe it's worth seeing what all the fuss was about. Below are the two videos, uploaded onto youtube on Sunday 29th March '09... The first video apparently shows a bear strolling through the forest...

We're working with the 'Free the Bears Fund' to help save protect and preserve bears. Find out more   about them here.

The second video shows still images of the bear supposedly seen by walkers in Rendlesham Forest...

How it came about...
In preparing for this summer's production of 'The Winter's Tale', we were trying to think how a little known Shakespeare play could attract more interest and get people's imagination's going. The play isn't as well known as our previous productions like Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth or Hamlet. But there is one stage direction, early on in the play which says 'Exit, pursued by a bear'. With this in mind and with the aim of attracting children and families out to this summer production, we thought that running with the fairy tale themes in the play would be a good approach. So we began designing our flyers and posters with this in mind - the bear in the forest taking a kind of Big Bad Wolf role in the publicity material. Then the idea came, that as we were opening our box office on April 2nd, an April-fools joke might be a fun way of drawing attention to it locally.

So over a weekend our team shot some mobile phone footage and took some time adding a strolling bear to each frame of a few seconds worth. Then a handful of pretend email accounts (Jenny Pearce and Nick Deptford were fictitous characters based on no real people!), and the videos uploaded onto youtube meant the hoax had begun. 

  

Once the local press picked up the story the national papers took an interest and suddenly the bear went from a small April-fools joke to a national hoax attracting comments, giggles and occassional criticism (oops!) from all angles. We won't bang on much more here, but you can see the response with a quick google search by clicking here. 

So What Next?
Now it's all out in the open (and we really are sorry if anyone has been upset or taken offense at what was intended as a little April-fools fun) we are getting on with preparations for our production of The Winter's Tale at Theatre In The Forest this Summer. You can find out more about the production here

We'd also love to hear your thoughts. If you enjoyed the joke or if you were bothered by it, why not contact us and tell us?