Forced Entertainment Workshop

Based in Sheffield, Forced Entertainment is a group of six artists who work together to create theatre. 'The work we make tries to explore what theatre and performance can mean in contemporary life and is always a kind of conversation or negotiation, something that needs to be live. We're interested in making performances that excite, challenge, question and entertain other people. We're interested in confusion as well as laughter.'

The company has been working as a team since 1984, whilst also participating in theatrical practices outside of the company. Their elements of exploration within plays have extended from playing games, playing with silence or dressing to intoxicated story telling. Some plays have even been stretched from 6-24 hours. The company do use texts, dance, movement and improvisation.
'We've made serious work that turned out to be comical, and comical work that turned out to be deadly serious, digging deep into theatre and performance, thinking about what those things might be for us and what kinds of dialogue they can open with contemporary audiences.
As well as performance works, we've made gallery installations, site-specific pieces, books, photographic collaborations, videos and even a mischievous guided bus tour. In many ways the company itself - a unique 30 year collaboration - is the bedrock of everything we do, a rare example of people building, maintaining and continuing to develop a vocabulary, way of working and innovating together over a long period of time.'

We had the opportunity to both have a workshop with one of the members as well as watch one of the performances by the company. Within the workshop we focused on ensemble work and listening to each other; given the simple task of writing down 5 things we're scared of each before compiling our answers. My group's list is as follows: being alone, dying, forgetting my family, being lost in a country where English isn't the first language, deep waters, rejections, railing, the devil's hour (between 1-3 am), rats and spiders. Our task was then to arrange ourselves in a line, and each person had to read out the entire list, however, we couldn't say more than one thing at a time (e.g. rats and spiders), only one person could speak at a time, and it had to be done a random order.

The people within my group were very good at listening at each other, as a result, there were maybe only one or two overlaps and there was a storyline that was beginning to form in the audience members and actors minds. We also played with silence which created intensity with the chosen terms. It was an informative and engaging workshop to participate in.

Below is a video clip of the play 'The Notebook' that we watched at Cambridge Junction.