Forced Entertainment

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Forced Entertainment 'Britain's most brilliant experimental theatre company.' The Guardian

We are a group of 6 artists. We are a group of six artists.

We started working together in 1984 and in the projects we’ve created we’ve tried to explore what theatre and performance might mean in contemporary life. In doing so we’ve made lists, played games, spoken gibberish, stayed silent, made a mess, dressed up, stripped down, confessed to it all, performed magic tricks, told jokes, clowned around, played dead, got drunk, told stories and performed for six, twelve and even 24 hours at a stretch. We’re still trying to answer our questions about theatre and performance – about what those things are for us and what kinds of dialogue they can open with contemporary audiences. The work we make is always a kind of conversation or negotiation. We’re interested in making performances that excite, frustrate, challenge, question and entertain. We’re interested in confusion as well as in laughter. As well as performance works we’ve made gallery installations, site-specific pieces, books, photographic collaborations, videos and even a mischievous guided bus tour. We’re based in Sheffield but we present the work we make all over the world.

Cold Sweat comes to Lancaster ONE NIGHT ONLY.Music loops. AI voices. Three bodies on a stage, lip-syncing to something t...
12/10/2026

Cold Sweat comes to Lancaster ONE NIGHT ONLY.

Music loops. AI voices. Three bodies on a stage, lip-syncing to something that is not quite human.

Cold Sweat is the second of the company's reflections on AI. The performers — Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Terry O'Connor — inhabit characters struggling to express their hopes, fears and uncertainties. Their speeches oscillate between heartfelt revelation and borrowed cliché, gradually revealing something genuine beneath the layers of irony and synthetic speech.

"It's an uncanny mix of the real and the unreal, the physical and the digital," says Etchells. "Something that becomes comical and absurd, but also something deeply unsettling."

Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster — Wed 14 Oct
forcedentertainment.com

12/10/2026

Cold Sweat @ Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster

We’re at the Southbank Centre for tonight’s performance of Cold Sweat. If you miss it tonight you can still catch the sh...
09/10/2026

We’re at the Southbank Centre for tonight’s performance of Cold Sweat. If you miss it tonight you can still catch the show tomorrow. ❤️

09/10/2026
Cold Sweat comes to The party moves south. Same loops. Same borrowed voices. Same glorious unease.Cold Sweat sees Forced...
05/10/2026

Cold Sweat comes to

The party moves south. Same loops. Same borrowed voices. Same glorious unease.

Cold Sweat sees Forced Entertainment return to the lip-syncing mode of their acclaimed Signal to Noise — three performers syncing their bodies to AI-generated voices, creating a collision between the human and the synthetic that is by turns comical, tender and deeply unsettling.

The figures onstage are channelling confusion, struggling to articulate hopes and uncertainties, looping their way through speeches that shift between heartfelt confession and the familiar rhythms of cliché. Through the layers of irony, through the walls of borrowed sound, through the mask of performance — something real is trying to emerge.

With original text and sound by Tim Etchells, performed by Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall and Terry O'Connor. Described by BroadwayWorld as "a virtuoso, absurd, and poetic theatre experience."

Southbank Centre / Purcell Room
Fri 9 & Sat 10 Oct
Tickets: forcedentertainment.com

05/10/2026

Cold Sweat @ the Southbank Centre, 9&10 October

In our hometown for the UK premiere of Cold Sweat - AI-generated voices with live bodies in a dizzying, lip-synced colli...
02/10/2026

In our hometown for the UK premiere of Cold Sweat - AI-generated voices with live bodies in a dizzying, lip-synced collision of borrowed sound, cliches, and something real trying to break through.

COLD SWEAT. UK PREMIERE. NEXT WEEK.After Paris and Stockholm, the delirious AI party-piece lands in the UK for the first...
25/09/2026

COLD SWEAT. UK PREMIERE. NEXT WEEK.

After Paris and Stockholm, the delirious AI party-piece lands in the UK for the first time. Music loops. Voices that are not quite human. A room you might not want to leave.

📍 Sheffield Theatres / Open Works Festival
📅 2–3 Oct
🎫 forcedentertainment.com

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