The World in Pictures
This mock-epic theatrical picture-book of the history of man snakes its shambolic and highly comical way from cave to shopping mall, with dodgy costumes, swirling music and over-enthused performances.Somewhere, amid the frequent flurries of fireproofed theatrical snow and the improvised scenery, there’s a bold attempt to tell the Story of Mankind.
Complete with cavemen in bad wigs, Forced Entertainment’s chaotic epic sets the tone with its beginning; a prehistoric 'volcano dance' which recreates a scene from the 1960s movie One Million Years BC. Skipping more of its narrative than it can hope to include, The World in Pictures whisks the audience on a mock-grandiose and comical trip from way back then to right here and right now. Somewhere on its wandering road of lewd diversions and noisy digressions, the group’s latest performance finds an articulacy and a pathos that its stumbling beginnings do not hint at.
Touching on memory, mortality, the past, the future and the intricate detail of our contemporary lives, The World in Pictures plays a series of low-key texts to break the confines of its incomplete history - an aimless walk in a city has unexpected consequences and an impromptu lecture using images found on the internet gives a brief window on a life that might just be our own.
This riotous, challenging and compelling new work from "Britain’s most brilliant experimental theatre company" (The Guardian) follows in the footsteps of 2004's acclaimed Bloody Mess, alternating between chaotic spectacle and fragile intimacy and continuing the company's exploration of theatre as a unique space of encounter between performers and audience.
© Forced Entertainment 2006. Theatre performance.
Co-produced by Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz (Berlin), Wiener Festwochen, Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris), Productiehuis Rotterdam (Rotterdamse Schouwburg), Kunstencentrum Vooruit (Gent), and in the UK by Nuffield Theatre (Lancaster), Tramway (Glasgow), Warwick Arts Centre.
Credits
Conceived and devised by the company
Performers: Robin Arthur, Davis Freeman, Wendy Houstoun, Jerry Killick, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Terry O’Connor, Bruno Roubicek
Direction: Tim Etchells
Text: Tim Etchells and the company
Design: Richard Lowdon
Lighting Design: Nigel Edwards
Soundtrack: Found Sources
