Perth loves Shakespeare.

A wonderful day yesterday, celebrating four centuries of Shakespeare! The University of Perth's lovely campus was swamped by fans who came to take part in the festivities.

Caitlin Beresford-Ord and Igor Sas playing
Queen Elizabeth I and our beloved Will!
Photo Courtesy of the #400 Facebook page

Along with colleagues Frances, Jon and Rosalind, I helped to man a 'sonnet exchange', where visitors to the celebrations could contribute a sonnet of their own writing and exchange it for one of Shakespeare's. This was done by tying tiny scrolls to the 'sonnet tree'. We collected the submissions at the end of the day, with a view to reading them aloud at a meeting one day soon. I hope we can get permission from the authors to publish them here, too.

Personally, I was blown away by the numbers. I'd envisaged a cosy little function with maybe a few dozen attendees, but there were hundreds of visitors! Our stall was very busy, and not only with sonnet swaps. It was the first stall in view as visitors entered the area, so we were swamped with all kinds of requests ranging from 'Where are the toilets?' to 'Where can I get tickets to ...' so we became a de facto information booth. A few visitors didn't know what a sonnet was, yet after having the form described to them, they proceeded to write perfectly acceptable fourteen liners!

Many thanks to the prime movers, Rebecca Davis and Michelle Fournasier of Big Sky Entertainment.

You can read more about the event on the Facebook page.