It’s one year on since William Shatner was falsely announced as the star turn at the 2014 Frodsham Christmas Festival, which made headlines across the UK and no doubt broke a fair few Trekkies’ hearts.
The rumour mill went into warp speed with gossip that the Star Trek legend would be doing the honours of switching on the lights at the 2014 Yuletide extravaganza.
The saga began when @Frodshamxmas tweeted that Mr Shatner would be appearing, after teasing the promise of a mystery guest for days.
The Twitter account posted an image of the star with the text: “I’m very excited to be coming to Frodsham.
“I have long been fascinated by the glacial landscape of the Cheshire countryside – its vast plain and sandstone ridges, not unlike some distant planet visited by the crew of the Enterprise. See you there!”
But Captain Kirk was quick to dispel rumours of him being beamed down to the market town.
Cllr Mike Pusey, chair of Love Frodsham which was behind the festival, said: “It is obviously a prank. It’s a good job they didn’t say it was Gary Barlow switching the lights on.
“That probably would have caused us some hassle as it would have been more credible with him being local.”
Kate Dodgson, executive director of Frodsham Foundation - which was responsible for organising the 2013 instalment - said the publicity may have raised awareness of the festival and pointed out it was obviously done in jest but warned that mischievous behaviour like this can bring its own problems.
She said: “These pranks cause an awful lot of issues for organisers.”
What's in store this year?
Festive entertainment at this year’s Frodsham Christmas Festival on Saturday (November 28) begins with fireworks and the lights switch-on at 6.15pm, followed by a parade along Church Street and Main Street with Santa and his reindeer.
While it looks like Frodsham will remain where no William Shatner has boldly gone before, the hoax is sure to live long and prosper in our memories.
