The Thrill of It All

Created 2010

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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.

Deranged dancing girls swirl, giggle, bicker and stray ever further from the point. Shabby compères 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.

The Thrill of It All continues Forced Entertainment’s enquiry into the spectacle of theatre in contemporary life, exploring the ways in which we live, breathe and tell stories in the circumscribed space of late capitalism. It also heralds a new direction for the group as they explore voice distortion – playing with the unsettling possibilities of the voice and the body becoming estranged – and dance and movement, with choreographic advice from Brussels-based performance-maker Kate McIntosh.

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REACTIONS

"The jokes are very funny, and there is profundity in the humour and the bleaker moments".

British Theatre Guide

"The reckless Forced Entertainment beat theatre to smithereens".

Cutting Edge

"Forced Entertainment's neo-vaudevillian, avant-garde crowd-pleaser is a real rib-tickler.****"

The Times

"Very funny…the performers are undeniably good…"

The Telegraph

"Vicious humour"

The Guardian

credits

Conceived and devised by the company

Performers Thomas Conway, Amit Hadari, Phil Hayes, Jerry Killick, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O’Connor, John Rowley
Direction Tim Etchells
Design Richard Lowdon
Lighting Design Nigel Edwards
Music and Sound John Avery
Choreographic Advice Kate McIntosh
Director’s Assistant Hester Chillingworth
Production Management Ray Rennie

The Thrill of It All is a Forced Entertainment production

Co-produced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels, HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, PACT Zollverein Essen, Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou and Festival d’Automne Paris and Theatre Garonne Toulouse. With support from Sheffield City Council