Signal to Noise

There seems to be a problem, a problem with the connection… 

An upbeat spectacle which is slowly breaking apart, Signal to Noise summons a delirious late-night churn of fragments – dances, rehearsals, altercations, scenery changes and unexpected weather reports. AI voices are enlisted to perform the text – their unreal chatter and patter mixing interior monologues, unfinished jokes and off-topic interviews. It all sounds right, more or less human, more or less real. What could go wrong?  

The six performers lip-sync all the voices, sometimes carefully, sometimes with unhelpful abandon, bringing life to these disembodied, never-bodied speakers. In the process they summon a strange and compelling world where the question of what’s human and what’s not, what’s real life and what’s just pretending is never far away. 

Tim Etchells' musical score mixes everything from filmic atmospheres to noise, xylophones to slowed classical strings, beats, trumpets, grunge guitars, and birdsong, but as ever with the Forced Entertainment, the performers are the heart of the work.

Signal to Noise “is absurd, charming and funny.” Its “casual seriousness... amuses and occasionally shocks.” — Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 

• 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 and further afield, the group have sustained a unique collaborative practice for forty years. The 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.