Forced Entertainment
| Conceived & devised by: | Forced Entertainment |
| Director: | Tim Etchells |
| Devised with & performed by: | Jerry Killick, Richard Lowdon and Claire Marshall |
| Created with input from: | Robin Arthur and Cathy Naden |
| Lighting design: | Jim Harrison |
| Design: | Richard Lowdon |
| Production management: | Jim Harrison |
| Sound technicians: | Greg Akenhurst and Doug Currie |
| Assistant: | Anna Krauss |
| Electronic music & sound editing: | John Avery |
| Loops: | Tim Etchells |
| ‘Grave’ from Telemann Fantasia Number 1 in B-Flat Major: | Aisha Orazbayeva |
| Real Magic is a production by: | Forced Entertainment |
| Co-produced by: | PACT Zollverein Essen, HAU Hebbel Am Ufer Berlin, Künsterlhaus Moustonturm Frankfurt, Tanzquartier Wien Vienna, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex and the Spalding Gray Consortium – On the Boards Seattle, PS122 NYC, Walker Art Center Minneapolis and Warhol Museum Pittsburgh |
| Forced Entertainment Creative Team: | Tim Etchells (Artistic Director), Robin Arthur, Richard Lowdon (Designer), Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O’Connor |
| Forced Entertainment Management Team: | Eileen Evans (Executive Director), Hester Chillingworth (Creative Producer: Participation & Engagement), Jim Harrison (Production Manager), Natalie Simpson (Office Manager), Julia White (Marketing & Communication Manager) |
| Forced Entertainment is an organisation that is part of the Arts Council England National Portfolio | |
| The presentation of Real Magic in Madrid enjoys the collaboration of the British Council Council | |
Diabolically simple and devilishly complex”.The Guardian
For over 30 years, the members of Forced Entertainment have had a unique artistic association defined by its collective and collaborative nature, which confirms this British company as a rara avis of avant-garde contemporary theatre. Working together means all members contribute something and no vision is better than another. Everyone listens, adapts, combines and engages their ideas with everyone else in a shared working process in which all members contribute.
The resulting creations are inflammatory and break free from pre-established theatre norms via improvisation, experimentation, energy and debate, exploring the meaning of the stage and its application to modern life. Encompassing theatre, performance, digital media, video and art installations, Forced Entertainment shows special interest in the mechanics of performing, the role that viewers’ play in the theatre and the intrigues of urban contemporary life.
After the great taste left in our mouths by Tomorrow’s Parties at the 2015 Autumn Festival, the British troupe has returned to Madrid’s stages with Real Magic, a piece with which the company pushes viewers into an absurd disconnection, struggle and comical repetition in a sort of Groundhog Day ambience. To the sound of looped applause and canned laughter, three artists attempt an impossible illusion: a telepathic number that seems taken from a television show on how to mind-read, although at times seemingly more like a chaotic cabaret act or a nightmare or bad-taste joke. Trapped in a world of second chances, participants are pulled onto the stage over and over again to experience first-hand feelings of hope, frustration, rage and defeat. Although perhaps they will get it on their next attempt… With three masterful performances, Real Magic takes the audience on a hallucinatory, ridiculous and complex journey about the little traps we fall into and our fear of change. A profoundly human work that transports Beckett’s absurdity to the times of tele-trash.