THE UK's largest airline, Easyjet, are set to stage live theatrical performances of Shakespeare plays at their airport check-in areas across Britain.
"We are asking our UK passengers to sign the petition while suggesting to those from the rest of Europe that they visit the land of Shakespeare to learn more about him and see his works performed.”
Manchester Airport's Easyjet check-in will host performances on Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 April (8am-2pm) as part of the airline's campaign to make April 23, the anniversary of the poet's birth, national 'William Shakespeare Day'.
Confidential were going to inform Easyjet that April 23 is also the anniversary of Shakespeare's death, but we didn't want to put a dampener on things.
Actors in full costume will perform extracts from some of Shakespeare's most famous works including Romeo and Juliette, Macbeth and A Midsummer Flight's Dream.
Easyjet, which recently unveiled a special edition aircraft with a ten foot image of the Bard on the fuselage, is hoping to amass 100,000 signatures to take the petition to parliament.
Shakespeare at check-in
Paul Moore, Communications Director for EasyJet said: "William Shakespeare is Britain's most famous author so easyJet is proud to back the bid to make 23 April his national day.
"We are asking our UK passengers to sign the petition while suggesting to those from the rest of Europe that they visit the land of Shakespeare to learn more about him and see his works performed.”
In a remarkable touch of prescience, Shakespeare wrote over 400 years ago in A Midsummer Night's Dream:
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt/So he dissolved, and showers of oath did melt/I will go tell him of fair Hermia's easyjet flight/Then to the wood will he to-morrow night.
Funny that. What a guy.
This is one of the more divorced PR stunts we've seen, still, anything that promotes the arts and numbs the knuckle-chewing tedium of the airport check-in process is to be welcomed.
We'd like to see more of this ilk. Perhaps Eddie Stobart drivers could form an orchestra and thrash out some Handel in the A&E waiting room.
More on the National Shakespeare Day campaign here.
