Forced Entertainment is an

experimental theatre Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre), inspired largely by Richard Wagner, Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu Roi, Ubu plays as a rejection of bot ...

company based in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

, England, founded by

Tim Etchells Tim Etchells (born 1962) is an English artist and writer based in Sheffield and London. Etchells is the artistic director of Forced Entertainment, an experimental performance company founded in 1984. He has published several works of fiction, ...

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

(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 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

aired a programme following their creative process developing, writing and rehearsing ''The Coming Storm''.

Projects

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 The National Review of Live Art, also known by the abbreviation NRLA, was an annual festival of live art which ran from 1979 to 2010 in the UK. History The festival owed its origins to a one-day event called simply the Performance Platform, wh ...

, 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 The Ruhrtriennale (compound of ''Ruhr'' and ''triennale'' "lasting 3 years"), also known as Ruhr Triennale, was founded in 2002 and is a music and arts festival in the Ruhr-area of Germany which runs between mid-August and mid-October, and happens ...

, Germany for ''The Last Adventures'' * 2016 –

International Ibsen Award The International Ibsen Award (Norwegian: ''Den internasjonale Ibsenprisen'') honours an individual, institution or organization that has brought new artistic dimensions to the world of drama or theater. The committee consists of figures in the the ...

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 Marie-Hélène Falcon (born 1942) is a former artistic director for theatre and dance in Quebec. She was born in Montreal and studied philosophy and theatre at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She was artistic director for the Festival du t ...

, 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 The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

claims that the group "continue to tour widely and to great acclaim throughout the world".

Publications about Forced Entertainment

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.

Collection

The

holds a large collection of video and audio material documenting their performances and talks.

References

External links

*
'Tim Etchells on performance: why a few heads are better than one'
at The Guardian - Tim Etchells describes the Forced Entertainment working process

{{Authority control Postmodern theatre Contemporary art organizations Theatre companies in the United Kingdom English artist groups and collectives