Forced Entertainment is a Sheffield based company that aim to re-invent theatre for audiences across the UK and Europe. They are known for involving the audiences in their performances and speaking directly to the audience. In their performance Nights in this City (1995) took the audience on a tour on a bus around Sheffield but re-invented the attractions. They re-named everything they saw after famous football hooligans, ghosts and cleaning products. They posed the question “How long do you have to have lived somewhere until you are allowed to lie about it? ” (Govan et al, 2007 ). Forced Entertainment have been based in Sheffield for over 11 years. They wanted to transform the place by integrating fact and fiction from the city to create an imaginative response. Forced Entertainment only performed this piece in Sheffield making the piece specific to Sheffield.
As a group we wanted to explore Forced Entertainment’s site specific performances because they are a company known for confronting the audience by using eye contact. At the moment as performers in the piece we do not plan in acknowledging the audience, instead we will continue to focus on painting the 83 toy soldiers that died. We are struggling to expand this idea any more and are not sure we need to but by looking at other site specific theatre companies and artists we can use their aims and ideas as inspiration for our own.
Govan, E., Nicholson, H., Normington, K. (2007) Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices. Oxon: Routledge