Article content Long before television, radio and movie theatres, there were the travelling shows, circuses and vaudeville, singers and poets, authors and orators. All travelled from city to city and town to town, providing entertainment for residents hungry for diversions from day-to-day life. Perth County welcomed its share of such entertainers. The earliest of shows were considered lewd and for a male audience. According to the PBS website, these “shows presented a variety of entertainment: dancing girls, comics, singers and musicians.” One such show passed through Stratford in July 1856. MacFarland’s Circus was covered in the Stratford Daily Beacon and the review was anything but complimentary.