Forced Entertainment is an experimental theatre company based in Sheffield, England, founded by Tim Etchells in 1984.
Details and history Forced Entertainment originally focused on making and touring theatre performances before expanding to long durational performance, live art, video and digital media. Their work has been presented throughout the UK and Europe as well as Australia, Japan, Canada and the US. They develop projects using a collaborative process – devising work as a group through improvisation, experimentation and debate. Their core members are Tim Etchells (artistic director), Richard Lowdon (designer and performer) and performers Robin Arthur, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O'Connor, who have all been with the company from the start.
A book was published about them in 2004, "Not Even a Game Anymore": The Theatre of Forced Entertainment. In 2012 BBC Radio 4 aired a programme following their creative process developing, writing and rehearsing The Coming Storm.
Projects
Jessica in the Room of Lights, 1984, theatre performances The Set-up, 1985, theatre performances Nighthawks, 1985, theatre performances (Let the Water Run its Course) to the Sea that Made the Promise, 1986, theatre performances The Day that Serenity Returned to the Ground, 1986, theatre performances 200% and Bloody Thirsty, 1987, theatre performances Some Confusions in the Law about Love, 1989, theatre performances Marina & Lee, 1991, theatre performances Cardboard Sign Photographs, 1992, photography Emanuelle Enchanted, 1992, theatre performances 12 am: Awake & Looking Down, 1993, long durational performances Club of No Regrets, 1993, theatre performances Looking Forwards, 1993, photography Red Room, 1993, gallery/installation A Decade of Forced Entertainment, 1994, theatre performances Dreams' Winter, 1994, site-specific works Speak Bitterness, 1994, long durational performances Ground Plans for Paradise, 1994, gallery/installation Hidden J, 1994, theatre performances Hotel Photographs, 1994, photography Nights in this City, 1995, site-specific works Showtime, 1996, theatre performances Quizoola!, 1996, long durational performances Pleasure, 1997, theatre performances Frozen Palaces, 1997, CD-ROM/interactive Dirty Work, 1998, theatre performances Filthy Words & Phrases, 1998, film/video Paradise, 1998, CD-ROM/interactive Nightwalks, 1998, CD-ROM/interactive Disco Relax, 1999, theatre performances Who Can Sing a Song to Unfrighten Me?, 1999, long durational performances Spin, 1999, CD-ROM/interactive And on the Thousandth Night..., 2000, long durational performances Hotel Binary, 2000, gallery/installation Scar Stories, 2000, site-specific works Rules of the Game, 2000, gallery/installation, text/photographs First Night, 2001, theatre performances Instructions for Forgetting, 2001, theatre performances The Travels, 2002, theatre performances The Voices, 2003, theatre performances Imaginary Evidence, 2003, CD-ROM/interactive Marathon Lexicon, 2003, long durational performances Years 0 – 20, 2004, photography Bloody Mess, 2004, theatre performances Exquisite Pain, 2005, theatre performances The World in Pictures, 2006, theatre performances Spectacular, 2008, theatre performances Sight is the sense that dying people tend to lose first, 2008, theatre performances Void Story, 2009, theatre performances The Thrill of It All, 2010, theatre performances Tomorrow's Parties, 2011, theatre performances Although We Fell Short, 2011, theatre performances The Coming Storm, 2012, theatre performances The Last Adventures, 2013, theatre performances Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare, 2015, performances of all 36 plays Real Magic, 2016, theatre performance"This Magic Life: Forced Entertainment cast their spell", totaltheatre.org.uk"Real Magic review – devilish gameshow is a Forced Entertainment tour de force" by Lyn Gardner, 13 February 2017, The Guardian Out of Order, 2018, theatre performance To Move in Time, 2019, theatre performance"To Move in Time review – hypnotic tale of the time-traveller's strife" by Mark Fisher, 21 August 2019, The Guardian End Meeting For All, 2020, on-line digital film series How The Time Goes, 2021, on-line digital film series Under Bright Light, 2022, theatre performance"Hölle der Geschäftigkeit" by Dorothea Marcus, 25 March 2022, nachtkritik.de (in German) If All Else Fails, 2023, theatre performance"If All Else Fails review" by Ben Kulvichit, 10 November 2023, The Stage Signal to Noise, 2024, theatre performance"Forced Entertainment @40 International Season", 5 February 2024, theatreweekly.com
Awards 1999 – 2nd prize for Quizoola!, Międzynarodowy Festiwal Teatralny Kontakt, Toruh / International Theatre Festival "Contact Us", Torun, Poland 2003 – Awarded Honorary Associates of the National Review of Live Art, at the 17th edition of the NRLA, in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the festival over many years 2008 – Invitation de Honor, XI Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogota, Bogotá, Colombia for Bloody Mess 2013 – Mammalian Diving Reflex's Children's Choice Award, Ruhrtriennale, Germany for The Last Adventures 2016 – International Ibsen Award 2017 – Theater Treffen Award Real Magic
Reception Joyce McMillan, writing in The Scotsman, called Forced Entertainment "legendary". David Tushingham, writing in the Financial Times, called them "The best group of stage actors in Britain". Robert Avila, writing in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, considered them "internationally successful and storied". Lyn Gardner, writing in The Guardian, has said that "Beyond these shores, however, the company is regarded as one of the greatest British theatrical exports of the past 20 years. ... It is this ability to smash through the pretenses of theatre that has kept the company ahead of the game." They have been described in The Guardian as having "produced some of the most exciting and challenging theatre of the past few decades". Marie-Hélène Falcon, director of Montreal's Festival de Théatre des Amériques, said of Speak Bitterness that "I had never seen anything like it before, a piece that was so political, provocative and poetic because it was a group of artists speaking about their lives – and therefore our lives – in the most direct way," "To this day, Speak Bitterness is one of the very few experiences that have radically changed my understanding and vision of theatre". The British Library claims that the group "continue to tour widely and to great acclaim throughout the world".
The British Library holds a large collection of video and audio material documenting their performances and talks.
Publications Numerous books and journals on theatre have included chapters and essays about Forced Entertainment.
"Not Even a Game Anymore": The Theatre of Forced Entertainment. By Judith Helmer and Florian Malzacher. Berlin: Alexander Verlag Berlin, 2004. . Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment. Routledge, 1999. By Tim Etchels. – hardback edition. – paperback edition. Essays and other material. With a foreword by Peggy Phelan. Illustrated with photographs by Hugo Glendinning. Includes performance texts from (Let the Water Run its Course) to the Sea that Made the Promise (1986). Emanuelle Enchanted (1992), Club of No Regrets (1993) and Speak Bitterness (1994). Things That Go through Your Mind When Falling: The Work of Forced Entertainment. Leipzig: Spector, 2023. . Edited by Adrian Heathfield. Photography by Hugo Glendinning. Performance texts by Tim Etchells and Forced Entertainment. With contributions from Robin Arthur, Sara Jane Bailes, Augusto Corrieri, Etchells, Matthew Goulish, Adrian Heathfield, Joy Kristin Kalu, Joe Kelleher, Richard Lowdon, Claire MacDonald, Claire Marshall, Rabih Mroué, Cathy Naden, Terry O'Connor, Giulia Palladini, Flora Pitrolo, Séverine Ruset, and Theron Schmidt.
References
Further reading Staging the Screen, the use of film and video in theatre by Greg Giesekam. "Third-hand Photocopies: Forced Entertainment" chapter. Palgrave MacMillan, 2007. . Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater by Jonathan Kalb. Chapter on Forced Entertainment's durational work. University of Michigan, 2011.
External links
"Tim Etchells on performance: why a few heads are better than one", The Guardian – Tim Etchells describes the Forced Entertainment working process