Forced Entertainment return to Riverside Studios after their Bloody Mess
Following the huge success of Bloody Mess in 2004, Forced Entertainment present their biggest ever UK tour for new theatre piece The World in Pictures, a work for nine performers created for larger stages, again alternating between chaotic spectacle and fragile intimacy.
Touring in Europe from May 2006 and coming to the UK from September 2006 with a London date at Riverside Studios from Tuesday 7 to Sunday 19 November.
The World in Pictures is an extraordinary new performance from the group described as Britain's most brilliant experimental theatre company by The Guardian.
Where Bloody Mess dealt with the creation and destruction of the Earth, at the heart of The World in Pictures are the bits in between a bold attempt to tell the Story of Mankind. In true Forced Entertainment style the venture seems doomed from the outset, as the narrator’s disruptive chorus of colleagues offer a storm of variably inaccurate advice and lewd interjections and the narrative swims against a tide of dodgy costumes, swirling music and improvised scenery.
Beginning with an overly enthusiastic recreation of a scene from the 1970’s caveman movie One Million Years BC, this mock-epic theatrical picture-book on Story of Man proceeds through a rapidly advancing ice-age, (summoned by an occasional downfall of fire-proofed theatrical snow) making its shambolic and highly comical way to the present, and omitting along the way much more than it can ever find words or time to describe.
The World in Pictures is directed by Tim Etchells and has been created in workshops with the regular performing company of Forced Entertainment who are joined by regular collaborator Jerry Killick, as well as Davis Freeman, Wendy Houstoun and Bruno Roubicek who worked with the group on Bloody Mess (2004).
Led by artistic director Tim Etchells, Forced Entertainment have over the last 22 years continually strived to find new performance and theatre forms with which to describe contemporary urban life. Their trademark collaborative process ¬ making work through long months of improvisation and discussion ¬ draws not only on theatre but also on cinema, music culture, literature and fine art. They continue to tour widely and to great acclaim throughout the world, and The World in Pictures promises to add to their already remarkable and unique body of work.
October 24, 2006
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