After seeing previous shows (Out of Order, 2019 and Signal to Noise, 2024) from Sheffield experimental theatre group Forced Entertainment, I was intrigued to see where Tim Etchells and co would go next.
Three artists perform in Cold Sweat: Richard Lowden, Terry O’Connor, and Claire Marshall. The show, set on a stage strewn with foam cups, strange props, and tables, heavily draws on lip-syncing and AI voices.
It builds on the ideas around representation, tone, and communication explored in Signal to Noise, with Etchells’s texts repeating and overlapping in a variety of recordings, each offering a different ‘take’ on what is being said.
The company’s physical movement and clowning also play a part, as does extremely artificial costuming and wigs. There’s a sense of the absurd and the unsettling throughout Cold Sweat.
It could be the aftermath of a wild party, where the cast of characters, perhaps lubricated by booze, ruminate on the nature of life. Slow down, says one text. Another talks about floods of tears. Another about tales that would blow your mind.
Etchells clearly has something to say about how AI influences our world, and how it can affect our comprehension through a change of tone. Some passages are deliberately ‘off’, and the performers respond to that.
In technique, this company is always impressive, cautiously comic, and more than a little disturbing. There is nothing subtle on the surface and nowhere to hide. An audience may not be sure how to react – confirmed by scattered laughs and applause as the show progresses.
Cold Sweat doesn’t quite have the power and energy of Signal to Noise, and it left me wondering just why this conceit of AI mime has been used for a second time.
If this is a critique about where humanity is growing, it isn’t quite sharp enough. It dips into ideas around meditation, personal growth, sentient connection and physical compliance without joining the dots.
Etchell writes and directs, but this is a devised show with Lowdon, Marshall and O’Connor, and it shows. Their brand of experimental theatre is born both of community and individuality. It’s hard to be bored at a Forced Entertainment show.
Jim Harrison’s lighting completes the picture, with flickers and spots that add to the unease that grows with each scene. What this performance is saying is perhaps up to us to decode.
3 stars.
Forced Entertainment: Cold Sweat was at Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room on 9-10 Oct. It is at Lancaster Arts on 14 Oct.
For more on the company, visit their website.
Photo credit: Forced Entertainment