If All Else Fails
Forced Entertainment
Information
Times: 2pm, 7:30pm
Tickets: Pay What You Can (Recommended Price £14)*
*all orders will be subject to a transaction fee of £2.
Running Time: 85 mins (no interval)
Age Recommendation: 14+
This event takes place in person in our Council Chamber
A Forced Entertainment production
Performed by Cathy Naden & Seke Chimutengwende
Co-produced by Cambridge Junction & Sheffield Theatres
Comical and tangled, If All Else Fails is an interrogatory dialogue of speech and movement, questions and answers. An absurd test that fails to find the answers.
Two performers engage in an absurd test that seems to shift and change as they work their way through it. Fragments of a language lesson. Questions from a personality quiz. Slogans from some future society.
The performers laugh, hesitate, ask for more time. As the clock ticks it’s not even certain if the subjects of the test are the audience, or the performers.
Drawing on the artists’ mutual interest in improvisation, and in setting up complex, comical and unstable performance situations, If All Else Fails brings together two powerful forces in the contemporary theatre scene to create a perplexing and original exploration of new territory.
‘Cruel, comical game of repetition and reversal from Forced Entertainment’ ★★★★ The Stage
‘Shockingly brilliant’ The Guardian
‘Theatre pioneers’ BBC Art News (UK)
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Credits
Director Tim Etchells
Devised and performed by Cathy Naden and Seke Chimutengwende
With input from Robin Arthur, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall and Terry O’Connor
Dramaturgy Tyrone Huggins
Lighting Design Jim Harrison
Sound Design John Avery and Tim Etchells
Production Management Jim Harrison
Biographies
Forced Entertainment
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, mainland Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and further afield, the group have sustained a unique collaborative practise for almost forty years. Led by the artist and writer Tim Etchells, the Forced Entertainment company includes designer and performer Richard Lowdon alongside performers Robin Arthur, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O’Connor. The group are committed to collective practice, involving and inviting national and international artists to work with us to challenge, develop and reinvent the theatre we make. Forced Entertainment’s 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.
Seke Chimutengwende
Seke Chimutengwende is a choreographer, performer, movement director and teacher; he has performed for numerous dance companies including DV8 Physical Theatre and Lost Dog. He is currently working as a performer with Forced Entertainment and Sue MacLaine Company. Seke has also been practicing completely improvised performance, using movement and text, since 2006. He has performed over 70 solo improvisations internationally and has performed ensemble improvisation with numerous dancers, actors and musicians. His recent choreographies include Black Holes, a collaboration with Alexandrina Hemsley, (British Council’s Edinburgh Showcase, 2019), the solo Plastic Soul (The Yard Theatre, 2019), and Detective Work, a duet with Stephanie McMann (commissioned by NEUROLIVE 2021). Seke is currently making It begins in darkness, which will premiere in September 2022, a group choreography looking at ghosts and haunted houses as metaphors for how histories of slavery and colonialism haunt the present. He will also be making a new group work for Candoco Dance Company in 2022. Seke regularly teaches improvisation at The Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, London Contemporary Dance School, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and Goldsmiths, University of London, among others. Seke studied dance at Lewisham College from 1999 to 2001, and London Contemporary Dance School from 2001 to 2004, and went on to train extensively in improvisation with a variety of practitioners and with Andrew Morrish in particular.
Tyrone Huggins
Tyrone Huggins has over 40 years’ experience as actor and performer. He was co-founder of the experimental, visual theatre company Impact Theatre Co-operative in 1979, touring nationally and internationally in thirteen devised productions over five years before working with other companies including Temba, People Show, Hesitate & Demonstrate, Talawa, Paines Plough and Graeme Miller Company. He has predominantly performed in new writing. Recent acting credits include Black Men Walking by Testament for Eclipse Theatre (with Royal Exchange/Royal Court); Always Orange by Fraser Grace and Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier by Somalia Seaton for RSC; Opening Skinner’s Box devised for Improbable (with Northern Stage/West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Honey Man by Tyrone Huggins for Judy Owen Ltd. (with Birmingham Repertory Theatre).
Access
PRE EVENT INFORMATION
This event takes place in person in our Council Chamber. This space is on the first floor, with step-free access via a lift.
If you have booked a ticket you will receive an email from us before your performance detailing important information about your visit.
PERSONAL ASSISTANT/COMPANION TICKETS
If you require the assistance of a friend or helper to attend, we can make a free ticket available for your companion. You can book access companion tickets online or contact the Box Office to book by emailing access@bac.org.uk.
To book a free access companion online:
- log in to your account here
- go to ‘Other preferences’ and tick ‘I require a personal assistant/companion’.
- Choose the performance, date and seats you would like and if you add at least 2 tickets to your basket, then one of these will automatically become free.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
Details of access performances will be confirmed by 31 August
All performances will be Relaxed. We invite you to make yourself comfortable and move around if you need to and if you need to leave the performance at any point you will be allowed to return to the space when you feel ready.
We believe in making our shows accessible to as many people as possible.
We offer tickets on a Pay What You Can basis for the majority of performances throughout the year. Tickets usually start at £8, and we have recommended pricing to help you to choose a price that works for you.
We know that ticket price is a huge barrier for some, and the Pay What You Can model offers people who can afford to pay the recommended price or more the chance to support others who can’t.
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