The Thrill of It All

Synopsis

It's bright under the lights, and hot, and frightening. Nine performers in grubby tuxedos and tarnished sequins play out a comical and disconcerting vaudeville to the strains of Japanese lounge music. Forced Entertainment return with a large cast on a big stage, filled with ragged dances and distorted voices. Deranged dancing girls swirl, giggle, bicker and stray ever further from the point. Shabby comperes compete for the microphone and the audience’s laughter as the show itself slowly starts to unravel. Dances end in fights, jokes end in confusion and sentimental stories end in arguments in this unsettling and extraordinary performance. Devising work as a group through improvisation, experimentation and debate has made Forced Entertainment pioneers of British avant-garde theatre and earned them an unparalleled international reputation.

Our Review:

27 October 2010

It's difficult to judge the success of a production that aims to be bad. The Thrill of it All, a new work from the controversial group Forced Entertainment, does just that. The audience is greeted by a troupe of badly dressed, clumsy dancers, who arrange themselves around a number of faux palm trees; things start on a deliberately odd note, and an audience member leaves, visibly disgruntled, within five minutes.

Taking the form of a series of show numbers, motivational advice and bizarre inter-cast fracas, The Thrill of it All is at times desperately full and at others surprisingly humorous and clever. Parts of the performance appear fully realised, such as an indulgent recitation of false poetry, but others seem de-skilled and arbitrary. Voice distortion, for example, is used throughout: speaking consistently at an exaggerated pitch, the cast become stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.

Forced Entertainment brilliantly exp...

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