The Coming Storm

Synopsis

Forced Entertainment, the UK's most celebrated pioneers of experimental theatre, have been turning theatre upside down and confronting audiences' expectations for over a quarter of a century. In their latest tour de force, The Coming Storm, they turn their attention to narrative - deconstructing and reconstructing something like a ghost story to test the limits of the form. Employing devices from amateur dramatics, puppet theatre, song and na?ve dance, they tell an epic story that is resolutely too big for the stage. This unwieldy narrative is absurd, contradictory and might fall apart at any moment as it is overwritten, reshaped and cannibalised. In a style as inventive as it is clumsy, wrong-headed theatrical tricks take their place alongside broken dances, live music (featured for the first time in the group's work) and increasingly frantic attempts to illustrate their blackly comic and haunting tale.

Our Review:

16 November 2012

Plays devised by committee by their nature have to include contributions from all involved. The result can be an unwieldy and self-satisfied production. The Coming Storm is conceived and devised by the six members of Forced Entertainment and director Tim Etchells is reluctant to impose discipline or offer clarity. The result is a show with a childlike sense of anarchy but one that is over-long and confusing.

Ironically the show opens with a monologue on the elements that are required for a good story. Gradually each of the company begins (but rarely finishes) their own story and interrupts and criticises those of others. The tales vary from surreal to mundane and there is repetition – a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ type story crops up twice. The cast take the opportunity, during one particularly dull tale, to erect the stage set and, from that point on, the stories take place against interruptions from sound and visual distractions in the background. ...

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