Forced Entertainment

Signal to Noise

Centre Pompidou
novembernov 27 – 30
1/3

French premiere

1h30

In English, with French subtitles

Prices € 8 to € 18
Subscribers € 8 and € 14

Centre Pompidou

Wednesday november 27

20h

Thursday november 28

20h

Friday november 29

20h

Saturday november 30

20h

Conceived and devised by Forced Entertainment. Direction, text, music and sound design Tim Etchells. Devised and performed by Robin Arthur, Seke Chimutengwende, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O’Connor. Dramaturgy Tyrone Huggins. Lighting design Nigel Edwards. Design Richard Lowdon. Production management Jim Harrison. Touring technical manager Alex Fernandes.

Production Forced Entertainment
Coproduction Athens Epidaurus Festival ; Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou ;  HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin) ; Holland Festival (Amsterdam) ; Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt) ; PACT Zollverein (Essen) ; Théâtre Garonne – Scène européenne ; Festival  d’Automne à Paris
Supported by the British Council as part of the UK/France Spotlight on Culture 2024 Imagining Together programme

The Centre Pompidou and the Festival d’Automne à Paris are co-producers and present this show as a co-realisation. 

With the support of

Over its forty years of existence, with Tim Etchells at the helm, the company has never stopped reinventing itself. And it continues to do so. Amidst an oscillating form of virtual reality, six performers find themselves deprived of their voices and their entire beings. The whole thing goes beyond all understanding... Welcome to this new world.

We might very easily be sat looking at the floor of a television or radio studio. It seems as though six people are preparing to broadcast a program. Each of them rehearses their script. Adjusts their microphone. Arranges their decor and props. They will be going on air at any moment... And then everything goes haywire, as is often the case in Forced Entertainment shows. Because the voices we hear no longer correspond to what we see on stage. Because theses voices seem strangely non-human... And they start to accelerate, for no apparent reason. And then slow down, with no warning. It is both funny and chaotic to watch, and above all, both disconcerting and intriguing. Who are these people on the studio floor? What happens when an individual has their voice taken away from them? What becomes of this so-called virtual reality when it breaks down? Currently celebrating its fortieth year of producing new work, the company, from the UK, has never come so close to the ambition that runs throughout its work, that of deconstructing theatre in order to reveal all its modernity.

In the same place