GetWiki

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2013}}{{Use British English|date=October 2013}}

factoids

}}Forced Entertainment is an experimental theatre company based in Sheffield, England, founded by Tim Etchells in 1984.WEB,weblink 18 June 2012, 18 November 2013, BBC, Forced Entertainment, WEB,weblink 27 October 2013, Fairweather, Shona Fairweather, Aesthetica magazine, Experimental Theatre: Provoking Ideas, NEWS,weblink 4 December 2012, 18 November 2013, Robert, Avila, San Francisco Bay Guardian, London diary, NEWS,weblink 7 October 2013, 18 November 2013, Mary, Brennan, Sunday Herald, Forced Entertainment Storm back with two shows,

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.WEB,weblink 27 October 2013, Forced Entertainment - Performance in Profile 2010, British Council=,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131224113417weblink">weblink 24 December 2013, dead, They develop projects using a collaborative process – devising work as a group through improvisation, experimentation and debate.WEB,weblink 27 October 2013, Arts Council England, Forced Entertainment Ltd,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131010231835weblink">weblink 10 October 2013, dead, Their core members are Tim Etchells (artistic director), Richard Lowdon (designer and performer) and performers Robin Arthur,NEWS,weblink 12 October 2013, 18 November 2013, Joyce, McMillan, The Scotsman, Theatre review: Tomorrow's Parties, Glasgow, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O'Connor, who have all been with the company from the start.NEWS,weblink 23 February 2009, 18 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, 'We are waging a war', 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

{{columns-list|colwidth=30em|

• Jessica in the Room of Lights, 1984, theatre performancesBOOK, Peacock, Keith,weblink Thatcher's Theatre: British Theatre and Drama in the Eighties, 20 November 2013, 1999, Greenwood Publishing Group, 206, Foremost amongst such groups to emerge during the 1980s was Forced Entertainment which in the context of the urban landscape, confronted contemporary cultural mythology. The company was founded in 1984 and based in Sheffield. Its first "show" was Jessica in the room of Lights (1984). This was followed by Set-up and Nighthawks (1985), Let the Water Run its Course To the Sea That Made the Promise (1986) and The Day that Serenity Returned to the Ground (1986), 200% and Bloody Thirsty (1987) and Some Confusions in the Law About Love (1989), 9780313299018,
• 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 performancesJOURNAL, Searching for redemption with cardboard wings: Forced entertainment and the sublime, Contemporary Theatre Review, 2, 2, 25–35, 10.1080/10486809408568296, 1994, Quick, Andrew,
• Cardboard Sign Photographs, 1992, photographyBOOK, Judith, Helmer, Florian, Malzacher, "Not Even a Game Anymore": The Theatre of Forced Entertainment, 2004, Alexander Verlag Berlin, Berlin, 978-3-89581-115-9, 293–316,
• Emanuelle Enchanted, 1992, theatre performances
• 12 am: Awake & Looking Down, 1993, long durational performancesNEWS,weblink 24 November 1997, 19 November 2013, Georg, Diez, Der Spiegel, Forced Entertainment,
• Club of No Regrets, 1993, theatre performancesJOURNAL,weblink Venning, Dan, 2012, Performance Theatre and the Poetics of Failure: Forced Entertainment, Goat Island, Elevator Repair Service, by Sara Jane Bailes (Book Beview), Journal of Dramatic Theatre and Criticism, 26, 2, 246–8, Department of Theatre, University of Kansas, She goes on to suggest that contemporary theatre groups such as Shefeld-based Forced Entertainment (founded 1984), Chicago-based Goat Island (1987-2009), and New York-based Elevator Repair Service (founded 1991) have used and constructed failure as an integral part of their performances., 10.1353/dtc.2012.0020, 191461687,
• Looking Forwards, 1993, photography
• Red Room, 1993, gallery/installation
• A Decade of Forced Entertainment, 1994, theatre performances
• Dreams' Winter, 1994, site-specific worksNEWS,weblink 13 July 1994, 19 November 2013, Ellen, Cranitch, The Independent, THEATRE / Quiet please, mayhem in progress: From off the wall to off the shelf: Forced Entertainment's latest theatre piece takes a leaf out of the Manchester Central Library. Ellen Cranitch reports,
• Speak Bitterness, 1994, long durational performancesBOOK, Lehmann, Hans-Thies,weblink Postdramatic Theatre, 20 November 2013, 2006, Routledge, 11, 9780203088104,
• Ground Plans for Paradise, 1994, gallery/installation
• Hidden J, 1994, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 8 February 1995, 19 November 2013, Clare, Bayley, The Independent, NEW stages: Fighting over their share of the cake,
• Hotel Photographs, 1994, photography
• Nights in this City, 1995, site-specific works
• Showtime, 1996, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 19 December 1996, 19 November 2013, Dominic, Cavendish, The Independent, THEATRE: Showtime; ICA, London,
• Quizoola!, 1996, long durational performancesNEWS,weblink 5 March 2013, 19 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, Who wants to see Quizoola!, a 24-hour play?, NEWS,weblink 22 October 2000, 19 November 2013, Louise, Gray, The Independent, It's only a game show - and then some, Louise Gray previews 'Quizoola!', a performance that changes the rule-book,
• Pleasure, 1997, theatre performances
• Frozen Palaces, 1997, CD-ROM/interactive
• Dirty Work, 1998, theatre performances
• Filthy Words & Phrases, 1998, film/videoWEB,weblink 20 November 2013, Tate, Live Culture: Organisers and participants: Forced Entertainment,
• 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 performancesBOOK, Liz, Aggiss, Billy, Cowie,weblink Anarchic Dance, 20 November 2013, 2006, Routledge, xv, 9780203016572, Deborah has written about performance and contemporary culture for a number of anthologies and media, including texts for Forced Entertainment's Marathon Lexicon of Performance (2003),
• Years 0 - 20, 2004, photography
• Bloody Mess, 2004, theatre performancesWEB,weblink 16 November 2013, Colombia Aprende, Reino Unido, invitado de honor, NEWS,weblink 3 November 2004, 19 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, Bloody Mess, Riverside Studios, London, NEWS,weblink 15 May 2010, 19 November 2013, Tobias, Becker, Der Spiegel, Theatertruppe "Forced Entertainment": Starlets in der Manege, NEWS,weblink 4 November 2004, 20 November 2013, Dominic, Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph, When the title says it all,
• Exquisite Pain, 2005, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 3 November 2005, 18 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, Exquisite Pain, Riverside Studios, London,
• The World in Pictures, 2006, theatre performances
• Spectacular, 2008, theatre performances
• Sight is the sense that dying people tend to lose first, 2008, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 4 February 2009, 18 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, Sight Is the Sense That Dying People Tend to Lose First, Arnolfini, Bristol,
• Void Story, 2009, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 24 April 2009, 19 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, Void Story, Soho, London,
• The Thrill of It All, 2010, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 27 October 2010, 18 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, The Thrill of It All – review, Riverside Studios, London, NEWS,weblink 29 October 2010, 20 November 2013, Daisy, Bowie-Sell, The Daily Telegraph, The Thrill of it All, Riverside Studios, review,
• Tomorrow's Parties, 2011, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 24 October 2013, 19 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, Tomorrow's Parties – review, The Junction, Cambridge,
• Although We Fell Short, 2011, theatre performances
• The Coming Storm, 2012, theatre performancesNEWS,weblink 22 June 2012, 19 November 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, The Coming Storm – review, BAC, London,
• The Last Adventures, 2013, theatre performancesWEB,weblink 28 October 2013, Kultur Ruhr, The Children's Choice Awards, Die Show mit den verrücktesten Leuten, verrücktesten Klamotten und der verrücktesten Musik/The show with the craziest people, craziest clothes and craziest music: Forced Entertainment & Tarek Atoui: The Last Adventures,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131206013746weblink">weblink 6 December 2013, dead,
• Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare, 2015, theatre performances}}

Awards

• 1999 – 2nd prize for Quizoola!, MiÄ™dzynarodowy Festiwal Teatralny Kontakt, Toruh / International Theatre Festival "Contact Us", Torun, PolandWEB,weblink 23 September 2002, 16 November 2013, Instytut Adama Mickiewicza / Adam Mickiewicz Institute, MiÄ™dzynarodowy Festiwal Teatralny "Kontakt", 2. nagroda Quizoola! Tima Etchellsa w reż. zespoÅ‚owej, Forced Entertainment z Sheffield;,
• 2003 – Awarded Honorary Associates of the National Review of Live Art,WEB,weblink 16 November 2013, A space for live art, National Review of Live Art 09, NRLA Honorary Associates: Robert Ayers, Neil Bartlett, Mary Brennan, Forced Entertainment, Paul Hough, Lois Keidan, Richard Layzell, Alastair MacLennan, Michael Mayhew, Stephen Partridge, Geraldine Pilgrim, Anne Seagrave, Ian Smith., 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 AwardNEWS, 2016-03-18, Sheffield's Forced Entertainment win International Ibsen Award, en-GB, BBC News,weblink 2023-11-29,

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".NEWS,weblink 18 October 2004, 26 October 2013, Tushingham, David, Financial Times, We go in and see what happens, The best group of stage actors in Britain are Robin Arthur, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O'Connor., 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."NEWS,weblink 25 October 2004, 26 October 2013, Lyn, Gardner, The Guardian, The crazy gang, They have been described in The Guardian as having "produced some of the most exciting and challenging theatre of the past few decades".NEWS,weblink 16 April 2009, 26 October 2013, The Guardian, Shockingly brilliant – 25 years of theatre company Forced Entertainment, Their experimental style has been dismissed as too messy and chaotic by some – wilfully baffling by others – but British theatre company Forced Entertainment have 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".WEB,weblink 19 November 2013, British Library, Forced Entertainment collection, The British Library holds a large collection of video and audio material documenting the performances and talks of Forced Entertainment.,

Publications

Numerous books and journals on theatre have included chapters and essays about Forced Entertainment.BOOK, Kaye, Nick, Art Into Theatre: Performance Interviews and Documents, 1996, Psychology Press, 978-3718657896, 235–252,weblink Art Into Theatre investigates the processes of hybrid forms of performance developed between 1952 and 1994 through a series of interviews with key practitioners and over 80 pieces of documentation, many previously unpublished, of the works under discussion. Ranging from the austerity of Cage's 4'33" through the inter-species communication of Schneeman's Cat Scanand the experimental theatre work of Schechner, Foreman, and Kirby, to the recent performances of Abramovic, Forced Entertainment and the Wooster Group, Art Into Theatre offers a fascinating collection of perspectives on the destabilizing of conventional ideas of the art "object" and the theatrical "text"., WEB,weblink 19 November 2013, TheatreForum International Theatre Journal, TheatreForum: TF26, Struggling to Perform: Radical Amateurism and Forced Entertainment by Sara Jane Bailes, WEB,weblink 19 November 2013, Macmillan Publishers Limited, Staging the Screen, The use of film and video is widespread in contemporary theatre. Staging the Screen explores a variety of productions, ranging from Piscator to Forced Entertainment, charting the impact of developing technologies on practices in dramaturgy and performance.,

• "Not Even a Game Anymore": The Theatre of Forced Entertainment. By Judith Helmer and Florian Malzacher. Berlin: Alexander Verlag Berlin, 2004. {{ISBN|978-3-895811-15-9}}.BOOK, "Not Even a Game Anymore": The Theatre of Forced Entertainment, {{ASIN, 3895811157, uk, }}
• Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment. Routledge, 1999. By Tim Etchels. {{ISBN|978-0415173827}}. Hardback 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).
  • Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment. Routledge, 1999. {{ISBN|978-0415173834}}. Paperback edition.
• Things That Go through Your Mind When Falling: The Work of Forced Entertainment. Leipzig: Spector, 2023. {{ISBN|9783959053853}}. 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.

Collection

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

Further reading

• Contemporary Theatre Review and international journal, edited by Franc Chamberlain. Searching for redemption with cardboard wings: Forced entertainment and the sublime chapter by Andrew Quick. Volume 2, issue 2, 1994.
• Art Into Theatre: Performance Interviews and Documents, by Nick Kaye. Harwood Academic Publishers / Psychology Press / Routledge, 1996. {{ISBN|978-3-718657-88-9}}
• Theatre Forum, edited by Jim Carmody, John Rouse, Adele Edling Shank and Theodore Shank. Struggling to Perform: Radical Amateurism and Forced Entertainment chapter by Sara Jane Bailes. Issue number: 26, Winter/Spring 2005.
• Staging the Screen, the use of film and video in theatre by Greg Giesekam. Third-hand Photocopies: Forced Entertainment chapter. Palgrave MacMillan, 2007. {{ISBN|978-1-403916-99-0}}.
• Performance Theatre and the Poetics of Failure by Sara Jane Bailes. Profane Illumination: Theatre and Forced Entertainment chapter. Routledge, 2011. {{ISBN|978-0-415585-65-1}}.
• Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater by Jonathan Kalb. Chapter on Forced Entertainment's durational work. Univ. of Michigan, 2011. {{ISBN|978-0472117956}}

References

{{Reflist|2}}

External links

• {{official website}}
• 'Tim Etchells on performance: why a few heads are better than one' at The Guardian - Tim Etchells describes the Forced Entertainment working process
• The Forced Entertainment Collection at the British Library

{{Authority control}}