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Spectacular arrives at Contact, Nov

October 9, 2008

Following the huge success of Bloody Mess in 2004 and The World in Pictures in 2006, Forced Entertainment present their extraordinary new show at Contact.

Spectacular opens with an epically empty stage, followed by the bumbling entrance of a skeleton, apparently as bewildered as the audience by the lack of a set. He starts to explain that things are a bit different this evening - the lights, scenery and other performers all seem to be absent.

The atmosphere is different, his entrance was off, the tone is all wrong. The audience reaction, our protagonist says, is not quite what he expected, not quite what he’s used to. Perhaps his bad skeleton out-fit has something to do with it. Nevertheless our host amiably chats away describing the dramatic tension which usually accompanies his entrance.

Just as he warms to his theme, cracking jokes and sharing his secret doubts about acting - and even the whole edifice of theatre - he is interrupted by another actor, seemingly from a different show altogether, and determined to perform her ‘big death scene’.

Spectacular slowly and seductively winds the audience into the world of a missing performance. It explores Forced Entertainment’s continuing interest in the mechanics of performance and the unique exchange between actor and audience that only occurs in theatre.

Simple, logical, absurd, intimate and comical by turns, Spectacular is about death and playing dead, to humorous and unsettling effect. It is about the now of the performance moment, the trembling edge of laughter, possibility and invention.

Spectacular runs from Tues 18th- Sat 22nd November at the Contact Theatre.

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