Presented by Forced Entertainment

There seems to be a problem, a problem with the connection…

An upbeat spectacle which is slowly breaking apart, Signal to Noise summons a delirious late-night churn of fragments – dances, rehearsals, altercations, scenery changes and unexpected weather reports. AI voices are enlisted to perform the text – their unreal chatter and patter mixing interior monologues, unfinished jokes and off-topic interviews. It all sounds right, more or less human, more or less real. What could go wrong?

The six performers lip-sync all the voices, sometimes carefully, sometimes with unhelpful abandon, bringing life to these disembodied, never-bodied speakers. In the process they summon a strange and compelling world where the question of what’s human and what’s not, what’s real life and what’s just pretending is never far away.

Etchells’ musical score mixes everything from filmic atmospheres to noise, xylophones to slowed classical strings, beats, trumpets, grunge guitars, and birdsong, but as ever with the company, the performers are the heart of the work – animating it with the energy and inventiveness that Forced Entertainment have made their calling card.

Created as the group celebrate their 40th Birthday, the show is a powerful mix of performance magic and off-hand deconstruction, a simple idea unfolded to open a unique space for the thoughts, laughter and reflections of spectators.

Signal to Noise is a Forced Entertainment production. Co-produced by Athens Epidaurus Festival, GR; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Festival d’Automne, Paris; HAU, Hebbel Am Ufer, Berlin; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt; PACT Zollverein, Essen and Theatre Garonne, Toulouse.

Forced Entertainment is an ensemble of six artists founded in 1984 and based in Sheffield. Touring and presenting their ground-breaking provocative performances across the UK and further afield, the group have sustained a unique collaborative practise for forty years. The work explores and often explodes the conventions of genre, narrative and theatre itself drawing influence not just from drama but from dance, performance art, music culture and popular forms such as cabaret and stand-up. The group operate at different scales, shifting from intimate two-performer works focused on text, to spectacular productions with large numbers of people onstage. Exciting, challenging, entertaining and questioning, Forced Entertainment has influenced the ecology and experience of theatre in the UK and beyond and been key players in of the development of a truly contemporary theatre language, inspiring generations of UK and international theatre makers.

Conceived and devised by the company

Director Tim Etchells
Devised and performed by Robin Arthur, Seke Chimutengwende, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O’Connor
Dramaturgy Tyrone Huggins
Lighting Design Nigel Edwards
Production Management Jim Harrison

World Premiere 21st March, 2024 at PACT Zollverein, Essen

Forced Entertainment Artistic Team
Tim Etchells (Artistic Director), Robin Arthur, Richard Lowdon (Designer), Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O’Connor.

Forced Entertainment Management Team
Deborah Chadbourn (Co-Executive Director), Eileen Evans (Co-Executive Director), Jim Harrison (Touring Producer & Production Manager), Jessica Matthews (Participation Producer).

Marketing: Caroline Griffin Consultancy.
Press: Bread & Butter PR

Forced Entertainment is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.

Images: Hugo Glendinning