Forced Entertainment

Forced Entertainment take the long route from the sunset to the morning light of dawn. At the centre of this improvised durational work are a series of texts in which eleven performers list their fears, great and small, epic and intimate. Alone centre stage they each sift the tangle of own anxieties, taking us from death in a fire to poverty and social isolation, from being stung by wasps to world social economic collapse and forgetting best-friends birthdays. Around these simple solo moments the complex, sprawling and evocative action of the piece unfolds as the performers flood the stage with skeletons, kings and other story-book figures, a forest of trees come to life, and a procession of pantomime animals that are magically disappeared in a recurring comical illusion. ”From The Dark” brings the audience to the closing moments of Foreign Affairs 2016, drawing on material from Forced Entertainment’s ground-breaking 24-hour-performance “Who Can Sing A Song to Unfrighten Me?” to make a journey from the uncertainty, ambiguity and fearfulness of night thinking to the clarity of morning. Lo-fi and playful but always serious in its deconstructed theatrical routines, “From The Dark” is Forced Entertainment at its inventive and hallucinatory best.

With Robin Arthur, Mark Etchells, Nada Gambier, Tobias Lange, Reena Kalsi, Jerry Killick, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O’Connor, John Rowley

Conceived and devised by Forced Entertainment
Artistic director Tim Etchells
Lighting design Nigel Edwards
Design Richard Lowdon
Costume Claire Marshall
Production management Jim Harrison